


While We Still Got Time

by wright_or_wrong



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 84,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2903684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wright_or_wrong/pseuds/wright_or_wrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not a thirteen year old girl, so he doesn’t think he can’t live without her or anything as melodramatic as that -- but he’s come to realize that maybe he doesn’t like his life as much without her in it. Post S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

\--

It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t _really_ mean anything.

That’s what he tells himself as they bolt from the basement bunker to save Greendale.

It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

However harmless and sympathetic Borchert might be, he’s still a crackpot, driven mad by years in isolation with nothing but his hand and that damn computer to keep him company. Who’s to say if he honestly knows how the damn thing works or what exactly it responds to -- and even if he does, even if he’s right about human passion being the electricity that fuels the computer, that doesn’t mean that’s what happened this time. It was probably just a coincidence – Jeff just happened to be looking at Annie, thinking about Annie, when there was a fluky power surge that wound up pushing through whatever juice was left in the system to open the door.

That makes just as much sense as any passion he might feel for one of his best friends being strong enough to power a damn computer.

Because that’s the kind of the thing that only happens in stupid, cookie-cutter romantic comedies starring Reese Witherspoon or Kate Hudson that have absolutely no basis in reality.

So when they’re dancing around the crowded cafeteria to celebrate their victory later, he writes off his racing heart, the hitch in his chest when he breathes out, and sweaty palms whenever he looks Annie’s way as nothing more than residual adrenaline from the day, from the threat of almost losing this crazy place that’s become home.

Near the end of the evening, though, he finds himself face to face with her as she sways to some lame song from the 80s he doesn’t remember the name of (he can’t stop himself from contemplating the fact that she wasn’t even alive when this song came out, though he pushes the thought as far down in his racing mind as possible) and he can’t come up with a single thing to say. It’s the first moment they’ve had alone in over a day, since Greendale nearly became part of the Subway corporation, since he announced his engagement to Britta like it was actually good news. Annie tilts her head, smiling in a way that’s some strange combination of shy and sly.

“I want to say I knew things would work out,” she tells him. “But I started to panic there for a minute.”

“You hid it very well,” he says. “Because you seemed nothing but totally determined to save this place. Like you didn’t think any other outcome was possible.”

She shrugs, and he tries like hell to ignore the flush in her cheeks and along her collar bone.

“I put on a brave face but…” She sighs, shaking her head. “I’m just glad it all turned out the way it did.”

He lifts his shoulders and struggles for a somewhat convincing smile.

“What’s not to like about a happy ending, right?”   

She starts to nod, but glances back over a shoulder for a moment to where Britta is dancing with Abed and Shirley. He’s pretty sure that Annie wants to ask about all of that, but she’s not going to – and he’s definitely not about to bring it up himself.

“Yes,” she declares, her voice going a little high and breathy. “Happy, happy, happy!”

She pumps her fist in the air a little awkwardly, and he wonders how long it’s going to take for things to get back to normal between them.

But that’s something to worry about for another day – he’s got an entire summer to forget what happened with Britta, forget the way that Annie looked at him in that basement as she did her best to give him her blessing, forget how Borchert’s computer reacted when he let his thoughts wander free.

And if there’s one thing that Jeff Winger’s gotten pretty good at over the course of his life, it’s blocking out anything even vaguely uncomfortable, upsetting, or difficult to deal with.

Annie spins in front of him, her skirt twirling around her, and he has to look away.

\--

A month into summer vacation, he’s descended into the kind of selfish, indulgent laziness that marked his former life as a lawyer.

That’s one point he definitely has to concede to this whole teaching thing – three months off in the summer, a month off at the holidays, and week off in spring. Plenty of vacation time to cultivate his self-centered slacker existence.

He doesn’t set his alarm so he wakes up whenever he feels like it, goes for runs through the park or a training session at the gym, lounges on his building’s rooftop patio in the afternoon to get a little sun, and spends a couple of hours on the couch watching Judge Judy and Dr. Oz or playing Candy Crush on his phone. Some nights, he stays in, eating low-carb dinners of grilled chicken and faux rice made from grated cauliflower. Other nights, he goes to one of the bars he likes and has a few of drinks.

Most of the time, he goes home alone, but there are a couple of nights where he’s feeling a little too lonely and a little too edgy and he winds up tangled in some stranger’s sheets. He doesn’t have work, so it doesn’t matter if he’s hung over or exhausted from sneaking out of a nameless (Well, not nameless exactly – they have names, but they don’t matter so he doesn’t remember them) woman’s apartment in the morning.

Most importantly, though, he isn’t thinking about Annie.

He’s absolutely not thinking about what he might feel for her and he’s certainly not wondering what she’s up to and he’s definitely not remembering the look on her face as she stood across from him in Borchert’s lab and essentially told him his happiness mattered to her in a way that it hasn’t mattered to anyone in a long time.

So he ignores the fact that the two women he’s slept with since school ended both have dark hair and a smart, little grin that might be vaguely familiar because, if anything, it’s pure coincidence. God knows he’s gone through phases before – all blondes for a month, nothing but redheads for another, and that inexplicable period where he had a thing for girls with braids – and they never meant anything in the grand scheme of his life before.

And anyway, the important thing is that he’s not thinking of Annie – actually, he barely thinks of his friends at all, and that’s a vacation all in itself.

Until the first week of June when Shirley calls while he’s in the middle of a Law and Order: SVU rerun.

He knows immediately from the sound of her voice that something’s wrong, even as she makes small talk about the beautiful weather they’ve been having and what a relief it was to see Abed post a photo of that postcard from Troy on Instagram so they don’t need to worry about him as much anymore, so he’s not entirely surprised when she tells him that she and Andre have legally separated – again.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says. “That’s in God’s hands… but I can’t bury my head in the sand and pretend it’s just temporary anymore.”

“You guys worked it out before,” he reminds her. “You can do it again.”

He’s not sure he really believes what he’s saying because part of him can see Andre and Shirley’s future clear as day and it’s nothing but a bleak cycle of coming together and pulling apart, over and over again. Shirley sighs raggedly, so maybe she sees it too.

“That’s not… I didn’t call for sympathy or a pep talk, Jeff. As part of the separation agreement, we have to sell the house and I’m here all by myself so I’m stuck cleaning it out and moving stuff into storage.”

He manages to hold back a groan, frantically trying to come up with an excuse as to why he can’t be a decent friend and help transport the contents of her life into a dingy, old storage unit. Shirley beats him to the punch, though.

“I know better than to ask for your help moving the stuff,” she says. “But there are a ton of boxes and things in the basement I need to go through. Do you think you could stop by tomorrow and bring them into the garage for me? You’re always bragging about how much you can bench-press – why not put it to use for a good cause?”

She promises that it won’t take more than a couple of hours and she’ll take him to dinner afterward as a thank you, so he can’t really say no in good conscience.

He’s ready to kick himself the next afternoon, though, when he strolls into Shirley’s living room and finds Annie sitting on the couch, sorting through a plastic bin full of what looks like finger paintings and construction paper-cutouts of pumpkins and turkeys. She’s wearing a teal tank top, cutoff shorts with frayed edges that lie tantalizingly against the creamy skin of her thighs, and sparkly black flip flops that show off the bright berry nail polish on her toes. There’s also a label maker balanced precariously on her knee, which nearly slides to the floor when she shifts back against the cushions to look up at him.

It’s only been a month since he last saw her, but somehow, he’s forgotten how wide and bright her eyes are, how she smiles and something in the air around her crackles with heat.

“She roped you into helping too?” he teases.

Shirley clucks disapprovingly as she heads toward the basement door, but Annie just shrugs.

“I offered, actually.” Her grin is teasing and self-satisfied. “That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t need to be guilted into being a good friend.”

“I showed up, didn’t I? That’s gotta count for something.”

Annie raises a dubious brow, but Shirley breezes back into the room and pats him on the arm.

“It counts for a lot, Jeff. Now if we could just stop with the chit chat and get to work…”

He throws his head back and lets out a heavy sigh, mostly for Annie’s benefit – and she does just what he wants too -- rolls her eyes with a kind of amused exasperation that makes him grin.

Down in the basement, there actually aren’t too many boxes to move and he’s thinking that Shirley overestimated needing two hours to get the job done – until he makes it to the garage and realizes that she expects him to take down a bunch of the boxes from the rafters and move an armoire that’s heavy enough to be made of mahogany too. He tries not to think too much about the contents of the boxes that he’s moving – the baby clothes and photo albums and what he thinks might be a wedding dress – because they only remind of what he’s doing, moving all the things that make Shirley’s life most precious to her for storage, which makes even a cold-hearted son of a bitch like him feel a little down.

So he doesn’t think about it. 

He moves the boxes and plastic bins with grim determination, slams his shoulder against the heavy wood furniture to move it one slow inch at a time across the dirty concrete floor, trying to avoid the spider webs, dust and grease that lurk around every corner.

Nearly an hour later, though, his t-shirt is still stained and damp with sweat. He opened the garage door before he started to get the air to circulate a little, but it’s still hot and stale inside, almost oppressive really. He’s using the bottom of his shirt to wipe at his face when he hears the screen door from the kitchen bang open and when he drops the fabric and looks up, Annie’s wandering into the garage, looking as fresh as a damn daisy. She holds a bottle of water out to him wordlessly and leans back against an old workbench to watch as he nearly drains the entire thing in a single gulp.

“Shirley wanted me to bring you lemonade,” she says. “But I knew all that unnecessary sugar wouldn’t fly with you.”

He huffs out a low laugh and shakes his head, but doesn’t bother to deny it. She glances around the garage, at the boxes neatly piled for the moving company to take over to the storage unit tomorrow, and his eyes follow hers to the small box on top with a pile of worn blankets stacked inside. They’re probably the boys’ baby blankets, the quilts that Shirley wrapped them in their first nights home from the hospital, used to soothe them when they were sick or had a bad dream.

Annie cocks her head and sighs wearily.

“I feel so awful for Shirley,” she practically whispers. “This must be so hard for her.”

He nods, kicking at a crack in the concrete floor.

“Why are we the only ones here helping her out?” he asks. “She could probably use as many friends as she can get right now.”

It’s a little bit ridiculous, he knows -- Jeff Winger talking about friendship and loyalty. But seriously, Shirley’s friends should at least make an appearance and let her know she’s not alone.

“Abed’s in Denver at some screenwriting conference,” Annie says. “He won’t be back until Monday. And Britta… well, you know.”

He squints at her and frowns.

“I know what?”

“She’s in New Mexico.” She hesitates when she realizes that it’s news to him. “She’s spending the summer building houses for Habitat for Humanity or some organization like that. I figured you knew…”

He knows Annie is well aware that he and Britta called off the whole engagement thing – Abed was eager to spread that news – but she must think that there’s still something going on there. And he shouldn’t feel guilty that she does, he shouldn’t feel like an asshole, but he kind of does – and he hates that.

“No,” he mutters. “I didn’t know.”

Annie bobs her head, trying hard to play it cool, and he watches as she picks up a wrench from the workbench beside her and idly turns it in her hands.

“I guess we all don’t stay in touch that much during the summer, do we?”

He shrugs, because he doesn’t really want to answer the question, to explain to her how important it is to him to get some space every once in a while and remind himself that he can live just fine all on his own.

“Maybe we can do something next week,” she says, in a bright, cheerful voice that makes it a little too easy to imagine her as a cheerleader. “A movie or something.”

He looks up at her, with her deep, glittering eyes and eager smile, and he feels his chest seize again, with that same panic and thrill that he felt in Borchert’s basement. He turns in a hurry, pretending to fiddle with a box at his feet.

“Maybe,” is all he says.

\--

He doesn’t see her again for almost three weeks.

In the meantime, she emails him the link to an article on the possible health risks associated with a long-term high-protein diet and texts to say that she thinks that they should do something to cheer up Shirley – which sets off a long chain of texts with Annie explaining that they shouldn’t be obvious about it or Shirley might think they’re pitying her and Jeff arguing that that’s essentially what’s going on and Annie quibbling over the true definition of pity and Abed chiming in that a trip to Elitch Gardens would definitely raise Shirley’s spirits and Annie chastising him for using Shirley’s situation just for a chance to ride some stupid new roller coaster and Jeff finally, desperately, suggesting dinner to put an end to whole thing.

So he winds up at Chili’s on a random Tuesday night with Annie, Abed and Shirley, eating fajitas and keeping the conversation to safe, neutral topics that won’t clue Shirley into the fact that this isn’t just a friendly dinner for catching up.

Fortunately, Annie’s willing to do most of the heavy lifting conversation-wise. She’s working at her old pharmaceutical company for the summer, so she’s full of stories about her co-workers and the unethical things that are done to get doctors to push certain drugs. The lighting is dim in the restaurant, but there’s no mistaking the glow in her eyes as she speaks, that spark of something that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen in anyone else.

“And my boss keeps trying to talk me into coming back full-time,” she says, stirring a straw through her margarita. “He’s even talking about a 15% raise, which is … well, considering my financial situation, it’s pretty tempting.”

Jeff frowns down into his black beans, but Shirley’s the one who actually huffs in disappointment.

“You’re not really thinking about doing it, are you?”

Annie lifts her shoulders, smiling tightly.

“I don’t know. Not really. It’s just … I’m trying to figure out if I’m wasting my time. You know, getting my forensics degree. Maybe it’s just a silly, little dream and I should just be out there, making money and …”

She trails off, and Jeff tries to ignore the tight feeling in his gut that has nothing to do with the spicy salsa he’s eating. He remembers the year they spent mostly apart, how easy it was to drift out of each other’s lives, and wonders if that’s what they’re all destined for no matter how much they might want to pretend otherwise.

“Why is it a silly dream?” Abed asks. “Doing something you’re actually interested in isn’t silly. Besides, you just helped save Greendale a couple of months ago. I don’t think your story is done there just yet.”

Annie nods absently, staring down into the bottom of her glass, and Jeff thinks of all the times that he’s pushed her away or ran away from her, how everything in his life seems a little off center when he doesn’t see her nearly every day, without her know-it-all voice in his ear and her bright, indigo eyes watching over him. She drives him crazy on the regular, but he even likes that most of the time, the way she can unravel him with just a word or a frown or a haughty, little flip of her hair.

He feels something slide across his shin then and he realizes that it’s the tip of her foot.  He looks up in surprise, and she’s watching him with an expression that’s something between concerned and amused.

“Are you okay, Jeff?”

For a moment, he honestly doesn’t know how to answer.

“Oh,” he finally manages. “Yeah. Fine. Just a little tired.”

Her eyes scan his face, trying to determine if he’s telling the truth. But he must actually look a little weary because she smiles after a moment and nods. He pushes the beans around on his plate with a fork and wonders how much longer he has to stay.

\--

It’s maybe a week later when she texts and asks if he’s free the next afternoon at one.

It’s simple and to the point, but he reads over the message at least fifteen times, trying to parse the deeper meaning behind it. His first instinct is to say he’s busy – he’s felt uncomfortable every time he’s seen her since the whole thing with Borchert’s computer and he doesn’t like it, doesn’t like feeling like he’s teetering on the edge of something unknowable and uncontrollable. There’s probably a perfectly innocent reason that she wants to see him, like a powwow about something annoying Abed’s done or whether they should plan a party for when Britta gets back from her do-gooding trip, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. He should just claim a doctor’s appointment or a visit with his mom, something that even Annie couldn’t fault him for.

But then, he thinks, reading over the text for what has to be the twenty-first time, maybe it’s better to see her.

Maybe the only way to get rid of whatever residual weirdness there is from the whole computer thing is to spend time with her, to get back to the solid footing that they were on just the day before they met Borchert.

So he tells her that he doesn’t have anything too pressing to do and waits for her response.

Not that he needs to see her or anything; it’s not that. He can admit that maybe he wants to see her, but there’s nothing wrong with that – she’s his friend so it only makes sense.

Annie responds less than a minute later with _Great!_ and he smiles almost in spite of himself.

Until a second text comes through.

_Abed had to bring his laptop to Geek Squad to fix some problem with the hard drive. It’s going to be ready tomorrow afternoon but I can’t take him because I’m working. You’ll take him?_

He wants to believe it’s just annoyance that he’s feeling, but there’s something dark and edgy to the twisting in his stomach. He’s good and stuck now, though, because he’s already told her that he’s free and it’s nearly impossible to weasel his way out of things with her anyway.

Still, he texts back _Why didn’t he ask me?_ for no good reason, and all she sends back is a winking emojii.

He doesn’t know what the fuck to make of that.

And it is annoyance, plain and simple, that he feels when he spends most of the night trying to figure it out.

The next afternoon, he distracts himself by looking at Best Buy’s cell phone offerings while Abed deals with the guy from Geek Squad. He should just wait until the next version of the iPhone comes out, but he’s tempted to pick out something now, because he wants something new to play with.  Abed strolls up with his reclaimed laptop before Jeff can connect with a salesman, though, so he figures it’s not meant to be.

“All set?”

Abed nods.

“I maxed out a credit card to pay for it, but they were able to retrieve all my files so …”

“Need me to chauffer you anywhere else?” Jeff asks, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

“Nope.”  Abed pauses, cocking his head. “And I appreciate the ride. I know there’s tons of other stuff you’d rather be doing.”

Jeff doesn’t bother disagreeing as they head out of the store. His friends know him; they know exactly who he is, so there’s no point in pretending. It’s kind of a liberating feeling when he thinks about, considering he used so much energy faking out everyone in his former life.

“I’m not going to ask,” Abed says, just as they reach the car. “I’ve decided I’m not going to ask. I thought you should know.”

Jeff looks at him blankly, thumbing open the locks.

“Huh?”  

“Borchert’s lab,” Abed says. “What you did to get the computer up and running.”

It’s easy to avoid Abed’s eyes by fiddling with the seatbelt and rearview mirror, so Jeff manages not to react in any obvious way.

“I’ve thought about it,” Abed continues. “And I’ve been wanting to ask, but I’m thinking that it’s probably something you want to deal with privately. And really, that’s probably the best way for the whole thing to play out. On your timetable.”

Jeff exhales a little sharply, but he’d like to think the sound of the engine coming to life as he starts the car hides it well.

“I don’t… it’s not… Abed, it was just a fluke.” He shrugs, hands clutching the steering wheel tightly. “A last bit of juice through the system that just happened to coincide with me putting that stupid headset on. That’s all.”

There are still some days when he can honestly believe that, when he tells himself that’s the most logical explanation. But it’s getting harder and harder to cling to that idea – every time he sees Annie, it’s like some wall inside him is being knocked down brick by brick and he can’t restack them fast enough.

“So why did you ask us to turn around?” Abed asks, in that accusation-less tone that only he can manage. “You expected something to happen, Jeff. That’s why you did it. You suspected there was something you felt passionately enough about to reboot the system.”

Jeff pulls out of the parking lot, clenching his teeth and gripping the wheel with white knuckles.

“Or maybe it’s the opposite.” Abed nods to himself, like he’s just come to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion. “Maybe you wanted to prove to yourself that you didn’t feel that kind of passion about something… but you miscalculated.”

At a stop light, Jeff turns to him with a frown.

“You said you weren’t going to ask about it. Talking about it is pretty much the same thing.”

Abed nods.

“You’re right. Forget it.”

Jeff steers the car like it’s his mission in life, forcibly blocking out any thoughts beyond speed limits and traffic lights. He turns the radio on too, so they’re not sitting in the kind of uncomfortable silence that makes people blurt out things that they shouldn’t. Abed bobs his head along to whatever pop song is playing, as carefree as always – and Jeff kind of wants to punch him in the damn face.

“Annie’s not taking that job with her old company,” he offers suddenly, and Jeff’s foot slips on the gas pedal just a bit, the car stuttering along the road for a moment. “Her boss made one last ditch effort to convince her, but she didn’t go for it. She’s thinking about taking a part-time position that’ll work around her classes, though.”

Jeff nods because he knows he has to have some kind of reaction -- he feels Abed studying him from the passenger seat, but he keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the road.

“I think that’s a good thing,” Abed says. “Her staying at Greendale and finishing up her forensics degree. It’s what she really wants, it’s what would make her happy, and it would be disappointing if she gave up on it just because it’s not the easiest path.”

There’s familiar scenery blurring past just outside the car window, but Jeff isn’t sure he’d be able to name the street that they’re on right now. He wants to tell Abed to shut up, though then he’d have to explain why. He adjusts the air vents on either side of him so more of the cool air blows directly in his face.

“Besides,” Abed muses. “Her story would be pretty boring if she resigned herself to a life as a pharmaceutical rep. And Annie’s always had major potential as a complex but root-able heroine.”

Jeff eases the car to a stop at another light and looks over at his friend. Abed stares at him almost expectantly.

“Don’t you think?”

Jeff’s voice is low, but he murmurs his agreement. Abed nods once, like it wasn’t open to much debate anyway, and then starts yammering on about how he’s already bought his ticket for the Guardians of the Galaxy movie next week and his hopes for it are sky-high, so Jeff can sort of tune him out. He keeps his hands tight on the wheel and drives.

\--

He isn’t bored with his summer vacation – the mere idea is ridiculous – but he’s getting sick of staring at the same four walls of his apartment all day, so when he’s been to the mall a few more times than his credit card can probably handle and he’s pumped all of the iron at his gym a few dozen times over, he finds himself in his office at Greendale.

The fall semester doesn’t start for another three weeks, but he figures that it’s a good time to get the place ready. Hickey’s taken a job at a school in New York to be closer to his family there, so Jeff’s going to have the entire place to himself – there are a few perks to being the Dean’s very favorite person – so he figures it’s time to make himself more at home.

Mainly that involves stocking his desk with a box of protein bars, a few tins of Altoids, a bottle of scotch, a couple of spare pairs of sunglasses, and an extra charger for his phone – in other words, the essentials – so it only takes a few minutes, and then he’s able to kick back, prop his feet up on his desk, and smoke one of the Cuban cigars Hickey so graciously left behind.

There’s nothing so bad about his life, he tells himself.

So he’s got a crappy job at a crappy school that barely pays him enough to cover rent and his designer jeans budget – that just means there’s little pressure involved and he can coast along, nice and easy, without having to worry about really proving himself.

And he’s still relatively young and been blessed with the kind of good looks that guys even half his age would envy.

Nothing to complain about, obviously.

There’s a firm little knock against his open office door then, and he lazily turns his head to find Annie standing on the threshold. Her hair’s in a ponytail and she’s wearing some little yellow sundress with sunglasses hooked in the neckline to tug it down a little more than he can handle. He grips the armrest of his chair a little tighter and tries to sit up straight.

“Cigars are just as bad for you as cigarettes, you know,” she says.

He grins around the cigar in question.

“I smoke like two a year so I think I’ll risk it.” He watches as she shakes her head disapprovingly and steps into his office. “What’re you doing here?”

He tries not to sound panicky or accusatory or anything but casual and disinterested.

“I had a meeting with the Dean. He somehow managed to find a little over $4000 in scholarships for me, which is really going to help ease the whole financial burden of only being able to work part-time.”

“That’s the least he could do. Considering how much you’ve done for this place.”

She shrugs, studying the floor, but Jeff doesn’t miss the pleased flush that colors her cheeks.

“Anyway… I saw that your door was open so I thought I’d say hi.”

“Just getting things ready for the new semester,” he says.

She cocks her head, pinning him with her bright eyes and smart smile.

“Making sure you have enough scotch in your desk you mean?”

He smirks back at her.

“You’ll be grateful I did the first time something at this circus masquerading as a community college drives you to drink.  Which I predict will be no later than hour three of the first day of the semester.”

She shakes her head but doesn’t bother to disagree. He watches as she glances around the room, her eyes lingering on Hickey’s abandoned desk.

“Well, you must be happy,” she says. “Having this place all to yourself. It must be just like your old office at the law firm back in the day.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he laughs. “Just like it. You know, except the part with my chair missing a wheel, the windows being painted shut, and the unmistakable scent of stale meatloaf and taco surprise lingering in the air.”

She smiles, in a small, almost secret way that somehow makes the room seem smaller and warmer.

“That’s Jeff Winger. Always looking on the bright side.”

She’s only teasing, but he looks away anyway, smashing the end of his cigar into the dirty coffee mug he’s using as an ash tray. He hates how hard it is to look her in the eye these days, how he feels himself crumbling under the weight of something he still doesn’t understand, that he doesn’t really want to understand.

“I should go,” Annie says, her voice going a little high as she gestures back toward the hall – and he wonders if she feels the strange tension lingering in the air between them now, if she can sense that things are different somehow. “You know, let you get back to prepping for the semester.”

He smiles tightly and gives her a halfhearted wave as she turns for the hallway, but he goes back to contemplating the ashes in his coffee cup almost immediately so he doesn’t have to watch her go.

It means something.

Jumpstarting Borchert’s computer probably means something because Annie is the only woman he’s ever know who makes him feel like this.

It definitely means something.

He thinks about the bottle of scotch, temptingly full, in the bottom drawer of his desk, and curses the day he ever set foot on the campus of this poor excuse for a community college.

\--

It might have something to do with his age – which he really doesn’t like admitting, but if it’s only to himself, then it doesn’t really count -- but sometimes, it’s actually better to drink with a buddy than some nameless woman in a tight dress who’s always twirling a strand of dyed hair around her finger and never laughs at the right times.

Sometimes, it’s even preferable to drinking alone in the corner of a dark bar or on his sofa with the TV playing soundlessly in front of him.

So when Duncan calls and suggests a pub crawl of sorts on a dull Wednesday night, Jeff sees no reason not to go.

The plan is to hit three or four of Duncan’s favorite watering holes, but they sprawl out so comfortably in a booth at the first place that they reach an unspoken agreement to stay put – particularly when they start commiserating about Greendale in a way that they couldn’t have a couple of years ago because back then, Jeff wasn’t stuck teaching there too. It’s not just about paycheck delays and a Dean who spends more time planning sequined costume changes than actually administrating the school either – those are actually small details that are easy to laugh about with enough free-flowing alcohol. 

It’s about something deeper than that, a kind of failure that Jeff doesn’t even think he can fully articulate, that he could never explain to someone who doesn’t know the same feeling.

“But there are benefits,” Duncan insists, tapping his nearly empty glass against the sticky tabletop. “We could show up there tomorrow, completely hung over, and it’s not just that no one would be shocked. They wouldn’t even blink. Because it’s just par for the course at that place.”

Jeff nods, watching the amber liquid in his glass reflect the light as he swirls it around.

“And we probably need to be honest with ourselves,” Duncan slurs. “I mean, we’re sitting here whinging about the place like whiny little kids when we actually helped save it. You even more so than me, Jeff.  Because if we really hated Greendale so much, why didn’t we just tell Pelton and that whole bloody committee to get stuffed?”

It’s pretty dark in the bar, but Jeff can see the manic gleam in his friend’s eyes, a look that says he’s not going to let this topic drop without a fight.

“What’s your point?” Jeff asks a little testily.

“*My point*,” Duncan declares, waving his glass through the air. “My point is that maybe it’s something else that’s got us feeling so gutted.  Something we’re missing somewhere else and it’s easier to just blame Greendale.”

Jeff slumps a little further down in the booth, the cracked vinyl creaking beneath him, and drains his glass. He thinks about his old life, with its plush corner office, five star expense account lunches, and $25,000 year-end bonuses – he was always so certain he was happy back then, that he wanted for nothing. But there were nights like this then too, if he’s honest. They were really easy to write off as a bad day, though, just bumps in an otherwise easy road.

He signals the bartender for another round and shrugs.

“This conversation’s getting a little too deep for me. Or maybe I’m not drunk enough for it. One or the other.”

Duncan isn’t paying him much attention, though. He’s staring off at the bar, head cocked thoughtfully, so Jeff lazily turns to see what’s got him so interested – but there isn’t much to look at. Just a middle-aged couple at the bar, in a suit and cocktail dress like they’ve come from some place nicer than this dump. He can hear them laughing, playfully arguing over who’s going to call the babysitter and tell her they’re running late but Duncan’s watching them like they’re the best show in town.

“I’m getting old,” he says mournfully. “I must be getting old because these days, I think that’s what I want.” He gestures toward the couple with his glass, splashing a few drops of scotch on the table. “Not some hot little dish to take home for the night. Someone to go home with every night. Someone who notices if you don’t come home at all. Someone who actually cares if you come home… doesn’t that sound appealing?”

Jeff chuckles, but the sound seems strangled and strained even to his own ears.

“Not really, buddy.”

Duncan’s eyes cut back to him, brows raised skeptically over his glasses.

“Do I need to remind you that you were going to marry Britta not that long ago? I imagine there had to be something appealing about the prospect.”

“No,” Jeff laughs again, a little more naturally this time. “Not really. That was just …”

He trails off, not sure how to finish the thought.

“Insanity?” Duncan helpfully supplies.

Jeff smiles, nodding slowly.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Duncan looks back at the couple, who are now settling their tab and heading for the door.

“Well, I’m man enough to admit it appeals to me,” he says. “Because I’m just so tired of the rest of it. I’m so damn tired.”

He reaches for his fresh glass blindly, but doesn’t spill so much as a drop.

“Doesn’t the person matter?” Jeff hears himself asking, and it’s like an out of body experience because he honestly isn’t aware of the thought slinking through his head until the words are falling from his mouth. “The one you’re going home to every night? The person who notices if you don’t come home? I mean, it couldn’t be just anyone …”

“Well, duh, man.” Duncan smirks at him. “Coming home to Anita the lunch lady with the lazy eye and surly attitude certainly wouldn’t hold the same appeal as going home … to Britta, for instance. Or Miss Edison. Or Shirley. Or…”

He proceeds to name every remotely attractive woman on Greendale’s campus, so Jeff tilts his glass on its edge and stares down into the scotch as he tunes his friend out. His head feels heavy, like he can’t possibly keep it upright with all the renegade thoughts ricocheting through it like gunfire. He drains his glass, the liquor burning all the way down to his stomach.

Later, after the cab’s dropped Duncan off at his place, Jeff leans his head against the cool glass of the backseat window and, for a minute, thinks about giving the driver a different address – it’s in the same direction as his place so they wouldn’t really be going out of the way and it’s late but maybe she’s still awake anyway and maybe they could talk for a little while before he passes out.

But he goes back to his empty apartment, collapses in bed with his clothes still on, and manages to fall asleep without drunk dialing or texting anyone.

In the morning, he can’t decide if he dodged a bullet or chickened out.

\--

Britta gets back from New Mexico a week before the semester starts, and Annie texts him on Friday morning to say that they’re celebrating their friend’s return with a little get-together at her and Abed’s apartment later that night.

For a minute, he tries to come up with an excuse not to go – he’s felt awkward enough all summer just being around Annie; adding Britta to the mix means an entire evening of feeling unsettled and on edge. He can actually feel the beginnings of a headache stirring at the base of his skull just reading Annie’s message.

But then, when he thinks of the inevitable fallout of trying to get out of the party – the guilty phone calls from Annie and Shirley, the not so passive-aggressive bitching from Britta on Instagram and Twitter, and Abed’s incessant texts demanding to know where he is and what he’s doing instead and why he’s avoiding his friends – it seems like a bigger hassle than just putting in an appearance and begging out as soon as is polite.

He thinks that it’s just going to be the five of them, maybe Duncan too because he’s kind of become an unofficial member of the group, but when he gets to Annie and Abed’s apartment, it’s more crowded than he expects. He should have realized Rachel would be there, but he’s a little surprised to see Neil and Vicki, the mumbly, redheaded guy from Britta’s psych classes, the Dean, and a few other people that he doesn’t readily recognize.

But that’s for the best – the more people at this thing, the less chance there is of things becoming uncomfortable.

Britta’s already a little buzzed or stoned by the time he shows up, and she won’t shut up about how transformative her trip was, how life-affirming and spiritual.

“But not in a religious sense,” she hurries to clarify, looking over her shoulder to make sure Shirley’s still in the kitchen. “In the sense that I feel truly connected to the universe. To my fellow man… and woman.”

Somehow, he manages not to roll eyes and he’s kind of astounded by his own self-control. It doesn’t last long, though, because Britta reaches into her bag and pulls out dream catchers for Annie and Abed.

“These were handmade on a Navajo reservation,” she says. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Annie nods enthusiastically and Abed smiles, but Britta zeroes in on Jeff, who’s definitely smirking even without intending it.

“That!” She points an accusing finger at him. “That’s exactly why I didn’t get you one.”

He smiles, finishing off his beer.

“You made the right choice. Because I’m not about to put anything in my apartment that messes up the décor.”

Britta groans in disgust and kicks at his shin, so he gets up and heads for the fridge for another beer. In the kitchen, he gets roped into a conversation with Neil and some drippy blonde kid about the Broncos and whether they can make it back to the Super Bowl with their current crop of running backs. He actually doesn’t mind it as much as he should because it’s an easy way to stay out of trouble.

At some point, though, he finds himself glancing around the room – and it’s not like he’s looking for anyone in particular, but he can’t help noticing that Annie isn’t anywhere to be found. That’s not a big deal, obviously, because she’s probably just in the bathroom, so he redirects his focus to the conversation about Hillman’s ball security issues even though the topic isn’t particularly interesting anymore.

So when he checks his watch a little while later and realizes Annie’s been MIA for nearly ten minutes, he wonders if maybe she’s not feeling well – she seemed to be nursing the same glass of wine for most of the night, though, so that seems unlikely. Checking up on her still seems like a good idea – and he’d do that for any friend, he tells himself, even though he knows damn well that’s not really the truth. Britta is slumped over in her chair, cackling like a lunatic, and could probably use a bottle of water – or five – but he’s not about to go over there and help out.

Still, he eases away from Neil and his friend and toward Annie’s room as nonchalantly as possible, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Fortunately, everyone seems pretty distracted – Britta’s still draped across the recliner, laughing at the ceiling, Abed and the Dean are attempting to play Quarters, though neither of them seems to have good enough coordination for the game, and Shirley’s in the kitchen with Vicki, having a heated discussion about whether a KitchenAid stand mixer is a worthwhile investment.

So no one notices when he knocks discreetly on Annie’s door – and he knows because he checks over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure.

Apparently, Annie doesn’t even notice because there’s no response from the other side of the door. He looks down the hallway and sees that someone’s in the bathroom so maybe that’s where she is. But he can see a stream of light from beneath the bottom edge of her bedroom door and it’s like he’s possessed or something because he’s opening the door and closing it behind him before he even knows what he’s doing.

The room’s empty and the bed’s neatly made so there’s no sign of Annie in here. But now that he’s inside, he can’t seem to bring himself to leave – he’s not sure if he’s ever been in her bedroom before, for more than a passing minute anyway, and there’s something oddly tempting about looking around at her things, the purple and navy floral comforter and bookshelves so full that she’s also got a few piles of books on the floor beside them and a framed photo of the group – the entire group, Troy and Pierce included – right there in the center of her dresser.

Maybe there’s nothing necessarily creepy about a guy his age having decidedly non-paternal, non-fraternal feelings for a young woman Annie’s age -- real, genuine feelings -- but skulking around her empty bedroom like a goddamn stalker definitely is. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, what he hopes to find, or what he expects it all to tell him, but he scans the four walls and its contents like they might actually hold some kind of answers.

He decides he should leave before he really crosses any lines and opens a drawer or something, but just as he’s about to head for the door, he hears a low, almost wistful humming even above the noise of the party in the other room. He turns toward the sound and wonders how he missed the open window when he first came him, the gauzy, yellow curtains fluttering in the breeze the passes through. When he steps closer, he can see Annie through the gap between the fabric, sitting on the ancient fire escape, her hand clutching a glass of wine and eyes turned toward the sky.

“Ditching your own party?” he says as he pushes the curtain aside and leans against the window sill. “That’s poor form for a hostess, Annie.”

She’s startled, nearly spilling wine on the white, embroidered tank top thing she’s wearing that kind of reminds him of lingerie.

“Jeff!  What’re you doing in here?”

He shrugs.

“Looking for you,” he says – because it’s the truth but vague enough to be safe.

“I needed a little air. It’s hot in there. Isn’t it? It seemed really hot in there.”

The breeze lifts her hair, curling it over her cheek, and she reaches up to bat it away. There’s not really room for him out on the fire escape, but he eases himself halfway out to look up at the sky with her. It’s a clear night, the stars laid out like a blanket, so it’s easy to understand why Annie would want to sit out here. He watches as she swirls the puddle of wine around in her glass, her eyes cast downward now.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show up,” she says softly.

For a minute, he kind of wants to pretend that he didn’t hear her, that they’re both just catching a bit of fresh air before they go back to their friends. Because sometimes, it annoys him, how well she knows him, how she can see things that he doesn’t want anyone, especially her, to see.

So he takes a sip of her beer and lifts a shoulder as casually as he can manage.

“What? And miss all this fun?” He nods back toward the other room. “That’d be crazy.”

She shakes her head and huffs out a little laugh, but he knows that his deflection isn’t really flying with her. Since almost the day he met her, not giving her what she wants often is nearly impossible -- because those big blue eyes of hers exert something as powerful as a gravitational pull. She’s not even looking at him now and he still feels it tugging at him. He nudges her foot with his knee, jostling her leg a bit.

“Why would you think that?” he asks. “That I wouldn’t come?”

When she looks up at him, her eyes flicker with something bright.

“I guess I just… Well, it’s like…” She takes a deep breath and shrugs almost helplessly. “Are you all right?” she asks, her voice pitched low, like she’s afraid of offending him. “You’ve seemed a little bit off since …”

She hesitates again, and he knows exactly what it is she won’t say because it’s the same thing he doesn’t want to think about either -- self-medicating and chasing the fountain of youth and proposing in a fit of panic.

In other words, not his finest moments by a long stretch.

Annie’s a little kinder than all that, though.

“All summer, really,” she finally settles on.

She looks at him with an achingly soft expression, like she doesn’t want to put even the slightest pressure on him, and it should be so easy to tell her the truth, to just man up and admit how he feels. He understands in that moment, though, that it’s not telling her that he’s scared of -- it’s what happens afterward. It’s the fact that he doesn’t know what will happen, that he can’t possibly have a handle on it, that he has no control over the outcome, that terrifies him, keeps him locked in place.

“I’m all right,” he tells her instead, and he scrambles for a reasonable explanation for any unease she might have picked up on. “I think it’s just… I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m teaching at Greendale again. I mean, one semester doesn’t really mean anything, but I do it for another and then it’s not just a temporary gig. It’s a job. A real job.  Practically a career. And I guess I just haven’t wrapped my mind around the idea that this is what I’m settling for.”

“But you’re good at it,” she counters, and there’s something light and airy in her tone, like she’s trying to convince him with the cheerful sound of her voice alone.

 “I’m good at most things, Annie.”

She shoves at his hip with her bare foot, and he notices that her toes are painted a dark, rich purple that glitters in the faint moonlight.

“Oh, God,” she groans. “With that big head of yours, how do you walk around without toppling over?”

He laughs, taking another sip of his beer.

“You know what your problem is?” Annie asks.

He wants to joke, ask her where she wants to start considering he’s got so many damn problems, but her voice is serious again, all soft and gentle, so he knows he should pay attention.

“You keep thinking of it as *settling*,” she says. “And I understand because for a long time, I thought I was settling at Greendale. I thought I’d failed at something better and I had to make do with a consolation prize.” She taps her toes against his knee again, smiling just a bit. “But if I hadn’t gone to Greendale, think of everything I’d be missing. I never would have met you and –“

“That would be a serious tragedy for you,” he teases, but she ignores him completely.

“Abed and Britta and Shirley and Pierce. I wouldn’t have gotten to really know Troy. And you guys are better than friends. You’re family.” She shakes her head almost self-consciously. “So I didn’t get to go to some Ivy League school… big deal. I got something better than that.”

Her fiery eyes and the determined lift of chin make it clear that she honestly believes what she’s saying, and he feels in awe of her in a dangerous way that always winds up biting him in the ass. He’s always been fixated on the years between them, on what it says about him that he wants her, but the truth of the matter is that she’s wiser and more mature than he could ever hope to be, even if he makes it to his 100th birthday.

And there’s some kind of seismic shift in his world whenever he’s around her. He’s not a thirteen year old girl, so he doesn’t think he can’t live without her or anything as melodramatic as that -- but he’s come to realize that maybe he doesn’t like his life as much without her in it.

He should tell her that; he should find a way to tell her that.

But maybe there’s some part of him that wants her to figure it all out on her own – she’s smarter than anyone he knows and knows him as well as anybody does. She could figure it all out and confront him and maybe he can’t figure out how to tell her himself, but he’s pretty sure he’d cave like a flimsy house of cards with just the slightest push from her.

Of course, that’s not really fair to Annie.

More than that, though, it just isn’t going to happen.

Years ago, when she was just a kid and had the guts to call him out on the thing between them, he denied it in front of their friends, made it seem like she’d imagined the whole thing like some lovesick school girl – she won’t put herself out there in the same way again, and he can’t blame her for that.

But it means that there isn’t going to be an easy way out for him, which sucks.

He grins at her anyway, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Despite the fact that it sounds like you stole that speech from an after school special,” he says, and she huffs in outrage, reaching out to swat his arm. “I get what you’re saying.”

Annie leans back against the railing and smiles.

“Good.” She lifts her wine glass out toward him. “To seeing more than settling.”

He touches his beer bottle to the glass and nods.

It’s something to aspire to anyway.

 --


	2. Chapter 2

\--

He decides he needs to set a deadline.

Because more and more, he’s starting to realize that he has to tell her.

Maybe he feels like he owes it to her. Or maybe it’s that he thinks it’ll make him feel better, like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders. Maybe, in uncharacteristically optimistic moments, he even thinks it’ll make them both happier.

Whatever the reason, he’s starting to see it as a matter of when, not if, and he thinks putting a timetable on it might help push him to do it.

It’s the start of a new semester too, so it’s seems like a good time to do it – because a new school year is kind of a fresh start so why not own up to his feelings and let the chips fall where they may?

By the end of September, he tells himself. He’ll do it by the end of September.

But he’s actually teaching three classes this semester, which feels like a hell of a lot of work, and before he knows it, it’s the third week of the month and he hasn’t even attempted to tell her. But there’s still a full week before the deadline is up, so it’s not like he needs to panic.

Still, when he’s cutting through the library one evening to get to the faculty parking lot and spots Annie sitting all alone at a table in a back corner, staring blankly at her laptop, something anxious uncoils in his stomach and he’s walking toward her like the clock is ticking down. For a minute, it’s like he’s just come from Borchert’s lab – his chest is tight and his palms are sweaty and there might be a faint ringing in his ears.

She looks up at that precise moment and sees him, though, so he doesn’t get a chance for second thoughts.

“Hey,” he says, hoping he sounds casual. “You got a minute?”

She nods, smiling a little tiredly.

“What’re you doing here so late? Don’t you usually flee campus the second your classes are over?”

“Office hours,” he sighs mournfully. He pulls the chair across from her out and sits. “And three people actually showed up.”

Annie smirks.

“The nerve of them. Actually expecting to get an education…”

“I know, right?”

They smile at one another across the table and time seems to slow a little so he’s aware of every breath he takes. The library’s nearly empty so it’s quiet all around them and the light’s kind of dim. Still, it’s probably not the best place to tell her – then again, considering most of their relationship has played out here, on this ridiculous campus, maybe it makes sense.

He takes a deep breath and tries to figure out where to start.

“What about you?” he says, easing his way in. “What’s keeping you here so late?”

Her smile widens a little and she gestures toward her computer.

“There’s an opening at the Greendale Crime Lab for a forensic science intern,” she says. “I’m trying to finish up the application … and I’m kind of nervous because I really, really want it. It’s a great opportunity to learn … and they actually pay. I mean, it’s barely minimum wage but still.”

Jeff reaches out and turns the laptop toward him so he can scan the website for the application requirements.

“Resume, letter of interest, and transcript,” he reads off. “Well, that’s a piece of cake then. You’ve got it in the bag.”

“My letter of interest is pretty good,” she admits.

“I have no doubts.”

Annie cocks her head, and her expression turns a little anxious.

“But you obviously do,” he says.

She sighs wearily and it’s like all the usual drive and fight drains out of her as she slumps over the table.

“They run a background check… so they’re probably going to find out that I spent four months in rehab for a pill addiction and that’ll be that.”

She lowers her eyes, reaching out to fidget with the edge of her laptop, and it kind of catches him off-guard, the idea that she still feels shame about something in her past that she actually managed to survive, rebound from pretty spectacularly.

If she feels bad about her past, how the hell should he feel about his?

“It’s not like you have a record, Annie,” he says. “They’re not going to know about that part of your past unless you tell them.”

“But don’t I have to?” she asks. “I mean, I can’t lie about it. If they ask me the right questions at the interview, I have to tell the truth.”

“Okay, but then you’ll get to explain the whole thing to them,” he tells her. “And they’ll look at your record since then and see how hard you’ve worked and how much ass you’ve kicked and before you know it, they’ll be begging you to run the whole damn lab.”

She looks up at him, laughing softly under her breath, and he feels the tightness in his chest loosen a little.

“The internship is all I need,” she says. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She smiles at him so gratefully that he feels himself mimicking her. She looks away first, tucking her hair behind her ear a little self-consciously.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “Going on and on about all this. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

When she cocks her head thoughtfully, with her laser blue eyes and all of her attention focused solely on him, he’s not sure he can speak at all. He definitely can’t confess something as important as how he feels about her, not when he’s pretty sure his hands are shaking a little – he shoves them under the table and curls them over his knees to steady himself.

“No,” he finally says. “Not really. Just wanted to complain about those damn office hours.”

He hates himself because he’s a total fucking coward, but Annie grins so he tries to ignore the feeling. He waits as she saves her letter and shuts down her computer, so he can walk her to her car -- even though she tells him it isn’t necessary. He stands under the dim parking lot lights as she buckles her seatbelt and starts the engine, shoving his hands in his pockets as she pulls away so he doesn’t do something stupid like wave at her.

But he still waits there on the curb until her taillights disappear into the darkness and he’s alone once again.

\--

As soon as he walks into the cafeteria, he’s nearly assaulted by the scent of pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin spice muffins and pumpkin spice cupcakes and even freaking pumpkin spice Oreos.

He’s always liked fall – the endless possibilities of sweater and jacket combinations are reason enough to dig the cooler weather – but he can’t say he’s a fan of this pumpkin obsession. Why the hell would he want his coffee to taste like pumpkin pie? It’s practically obscene, so he finds himself ordering a double shot of espresso to make a point – to who, he’s not exactly sure but he definitely feels a sense of superiority as he settles in a booth with his piping hot liquid caffeine, entirely free of pumpkin and spice and everything nice.

He’s just about finished with his espresso when Abed slides into the seat across from him. The kid doesn’t say a word at first, busying himself with tugging his baked good of choice free from the plastic wrap around it. Abed’s not partaking of the whole pumpkin spice obsession, but the sugar cookie in front of him is practically the size of a softball and covered in sparkling orange and black frosting so it resembles a Jack-o-lantern.

“Halloween is a few weeks away,” he announces once he’s fully liberated the cookie from its wrapper, and Jeff nods inanely – he’s well aware of precisely how many days there are until Halloween because it’s his new deadline for telling Annie. “I like a good horror film any time of the year, but now, it’s practically a necessity. You know?”

Jeff nods again, sipping his espresso.

“So there’s a remake of ‘The Town That Dreaded Sundown’ coming out. I don’t want to overstate it but the original is probably one of the most underrated horror movies ever. I mean, most people have never heard of it. It gets a mention in ‘Scream,’ but there are so many movies references in that one that no one probably noticed.” Abed looks at him almost accusingly. “Have *you* ever heard of it?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“The remake is playing tonight in Castle Rock. Wanna go?”

“Rachel doesn’t want to?”.

“She’s working… and she didn’t like the original much so she’s not really interested in the sequel.”

Jeff nods, trying to come up with a legitimate excuse not to go. With Troy gone, though, it’s not like Abed has too many other friends to drag to movies with him. But it’s also time for Jeff’s bi-monthly review of his closet when he tries on everything he owns and gets rid of any weak links and he’s actually been looking forward to the prospect all morning.

He glances around the cafeteria absently, biding his time as he tries to decide what to do – only to get a little distracted when he spots Annie standing in front of the vending machines in the student lounge. He can only see her profile, but it looks like she’s smiling, kind of softly and warmly, and he finds himself smiling along with her.

Until he realizes that she’s actually talking to someone.

The guy standing opposite her is fairly non-descript, with his sandy brown hair and gray shirt, but he’s getting Annie to laugh and tilt her head in a way that Jeff doesn’t really like.

“Hey,” he says to Abed. “Who’s that guy with Annie?”

He nods in her direction, and Abed turns to look over his shoulder.

“Oh, that’s Jesse,” he says. “He’s the delivery guy who restocks the vending machines.”

Jeff nods again, because that makes perfect sense – Annie was probably getting a soda and made small talk with the guy to be nice because that’s just how she is.

“He’s always giving Annie free candy,” Abed adds. “I guess it’s part of his wooing process or something. It’s actually kind of similar to what happens in the little known Mandy Moore movie…”

Jeff doesn’t hear the rest because sure enough, Jesse – God, that’s a douchebag name if ever he heard one – is opening the front panel of the vending machine and pulling a bag of Peanut M&M’s, Annie’s favorite candy, from their slot with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it plenty of times before. When he holds them out to Annie, she takes the package like the guy’s handing over a bouquet of roses or a velvet-covered, ring-sized box.

“He’s a nice guy,” Abed offers, as if he’s suddenly sensed the shift in Jeff’s mood. “I told him nobody likes Reese’s Pieces as much as the Peanut Butter cups and now he stocks two slots of the cups.”

“What a prince,” Jeff grits out.

Jesse’s actually doing his job now, placing packages of chocolate and chips in the slots instead of stealing merchandise to charm women with, but Annie’s still at his side, leaning back against the soda machine to apparently make herself comfortable while she keeps him company.

Jeff feels a prickly tightness in his chest, but when he places his palm in the center, all he feels is his heart beating as usual.

“So what time’s the movie?” he asks Abed.

\--

He doesn’t have to ask.

Abed tells Britta and Britta passes the information onto Duncan, who tells Jeff, not because he’s thinking that his friend is carrying a torch for their hot, young friend, but because he finds it interesting that she’s willing to slum it with a delivery guy.

But however the information gets to him, Jeff is well aware that Annie’s gone on at least one date with the fucking candy man.

It doesn’t matter that he’s got no one to blame for the situation he’s in but himself -- he’s good and pissed and feeling sorry for himself in a big way, which is why he decides to blow off Britta’s birthday celebration to drink alone in his apartment. He’s not a Goddamn masochist, so he sure as hell doesn’t want to spend his night listening to Annie share all the gory details of her date at the party.

But he’s only gotten as far as pouring his second drink when there’s an angry pounding at his door that he could swear rattles the walls. He’s honestly more intrigued than annoyed as he gets up to open it – if it’s Mrs. Meaney from downstairs telling him that he’s making too much noise again, though, he’s not going to be pleased, considering that he’s been spread out on the sofa like a slug, barely moving, for the past half hour.

But when he flings the door open, it’s not Mrs. Meany standing on his doorstep – it’s Annie, who comes charging in, eyes blazing and hands curled into tight fists. 

“You’ve got to be the most selfish man on the face of the planet,” she declares. “You realize that, right?”

He’s annoyed to see her, annoyed that she’s intruded upon his night of licking his wounds in private, and just wants her to leave. But there’s also some part of him that’s almost pleasantly surprised to see her, pleased that she’d go to the trouble of coming here.

He is a fucking mess – not that he’s going to let her know that.

“Is this about me taking the last lettuce wrap at dinner the other night?” he asks flippantly.

“This isn’t a joke, Jeff.  It’s Britta’s birthday but apparently you have so many important things to do that you can’t show up to dinner for even a half hour. Is that right?”

He sinks down on the couch again, reaching for his drink and propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“I wasn’t in the mood, okay? It’s not a big deal or—“

“Maybe it’s not a big deal to you, but it’s probably a big deal to Britta.”

“It’s not like I’m ignoring her, Annie,” he says. “I texted her earlier and wished her a happy birthday.”

Annie throws her hands up and laughs scornfully.

“Oh, well, then, I guess you’re off the hook. You took three whole seconds to text her – you’re probably in the running for friend of the year!”

If he wasn’t pissed before, he is definitely is now and he lurches to his feet to tower over her.

“If Britta’s so upset, why are you the one who’s here? Did she send you over here to yell at me?”

“No,” Annie says, lowering her eyes. “She doesn’t know I’m here, actually. But it doesn’t take a mind reader to know she’d be upset. I mean, you two were going to…” She trails off, like she’s suddenly realized what she’s about to reference and has thought better of it. “I just know how I would feel if you ditched me on my birthday, okay?”

There’s something so open and vulnerable about her expression that it makes him uncomfortable, and he looks down at the floor, shuffling his feet uselessly.

“Yeah, well, you’re not Britta,” he says. “And none of this is really your business.”

They seem to look up at one another in unison, as if his words reach them at the same moment. He’s not sure how he looks exactly, but Annie looks stunned at first, eyes wide and unblinking, before something in her expression seems to crumble in on itself. He tries to remember if he’s ever seen her look this hurt because of something he’s said or done before – maybe a million years ago when he pretended in front of their friends that she was nothing but a schoolgirl with a one-sided crush or just a few months ago when he announced that he was marrying Britta.

So he doesn’t think he’ll forget this moment either.

But it takes only a few seconds before she pulls herself together, her gaze going all steely and dark.

“Fine,” she hisses. “Fine. Be a selfish ass if you want. See if I care.”

He doesn’t think about following her as she storms toward the door at all. When it slams behind her, though, he does briefly consider throwing his glass against the wall – there’s something about the crashing sound that he thinks he’d find satisfying.

But in the end, he decides it requires too much effort so he just drops it heavily on the coffee table. Now that Annie’s been here, his apartment feels tainted with her presence, like he can’t get any distance for himself at all, so he grabs a jacket and his keys. There’s a decent bar a few blocks from his building and he thinks maybe he’ll feel more like himself if he gets out into the real world, so he can remember how big it actually is, that his friends from Greendale aren’t at the center of everything, that he doesn’t pine for anyone, that he’s the kind of guy who’s undone by a woman, no matter how deep his feelings might run.

And it definitely helps that he’s not at the bar more than ten minutes before a woman slides onto the stool next to him and eyes him like he’s a juicy cut of filet mignon and she’s been eating nothing but ground chuck for weeks.

She’s got dark hair, but it’s cut in a sleek, little bob so it doesn’t really remind him of anyone. Her dress is expensive too, probably designer, and she smells like Chanel No. 5 -- so if this woman reminds him of anyone, it’s Suzanne, one of the partners in his first year at the firm, who always wore the scent, along with clothes that could have appeared in Vogue. He slept with her before the end of his first month and she saw to it that he got plenty of choice cases – he misses the simplicity of that kind of relationship, where no one expects anything more than a simple transaction for services rendered.

The good news is that Sara from the bar seems to understand that kind of arrangement. She also likes scotch and she matches him drink for drink, so when she leans in to kiss him, she tastes rich and a little sweet. It helps his mind go a little hazy too, so it’s easier to forget what sent him to the bar in the first place.

Later, though, when he’s sneaking out of her bed in the dark, more sober than drunk, he can’t help thinking he’s too old for this shit – but then he’s probably too fucking old to have fallen for a girl who’s not even twenty-five yet and that hasn’t stopped him one damn bit.  

Five hours later, when he’s hunched over in a cafeteria booth at Greendale, chugging black coffee in the hopes that it’ll get rid of his headache, he’s firmly entrenched in self-loathing mode and wondering if it’s more or less acceptable to skip class when you’re the one teaching it.

He’s so out of it that he doesn’t notice Annie until she’s sliding into the booth opposite him. She avoids his eyes as she reaches into her bag, pulls out a little silver pill case with blue rhinestones across the lid, and carefully extracts two Advil. She slides the pills and a bottle of water toward him and finally looks up.

“You can be a real jerk sometimes, Jeff,” she sighs -- and there’s such sadness in her voice and eyes, and he knows that it’s because, somehow, she sees him as so much more than that most days so when he disappoints her, it hurts in a way that probably catches her off-guard. “But you’re right. What goes on between you and Britta is none of my business and I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

There’s a part of him that wants to tell her she’s got it all wrong, that none of it had anything to do with Britta or what’s going on between he and Britta. But there’s an even bigger part of him that’s so relieved that she doesn’t understand what it’s really about – that she’s gone on one date with some random guy and he’s totally losing his shit – that he just lets it go.

Across the table, Annie smiles tightly and shrugs.

“So I’m sorry,” she says. “I won’t do it again.”

He nods, ignoring the ache in his head. He thinks about the woman last night, whose name he can’t remember right now, and wonders if he’s ever going to be able to touch anyone again without thinking of Annie, without doing some sort of sick mental comparison. He wonders if he can ever really get over this, the feelings that seem to be lodged heavy and hard in his chest – if he watches her date the delivery man long enough, if he holds it all in long enough, maybe then it’ll stop feeling like a curse he’s never going to break.

But he looks at her now, and it’s impossible to think that those ridiculous, beautiful eyes of hers aren’t always going to draw him in, keep him trapped.

“I’m sorry, too,” he finally says. “For being a jerk.”

She huffs out a half-hearted laugh and sort of bobs her head as if to approve the apology before starting to slide out of the booth.

“Annie,” he calls after her before she can make it more than a few feet.

He knows he probably sounds desperate but he can’t help himself. She turns slowly, looking back at him almost tentatively.

“I promise I won’t miss your birthday,” he says. “Okay?”

She cocks her head, like she’s turning his words over carefully. When she smiles, there might be something a little sad and weary in it but it’s better than nothing.

\--

Because Annie ruled with such an iron fist and solved so many of Greendale’s most pressing problems last year, the committee doesn’t have as much work to do these days, which means there’s plenty of time at their meeting to discuss her love life.

Jeff keeps his eyes focused on his phone where he’s playing Bejeweled, a completely mindless task that still manages to make him look busy while Britta and Shirley interrogate Annie, so he can pretend he’s not listening at all.

It’s funny because he didn’t know Jesse the delivery guy existed until a few weeks ago, and now the guy is everywhere, on a campus every damn day – and Jeff just doesn’t believe that Greendale’s going through Diet Cokes and Snickers bars that fast.

He’s learned from listening to Annie talk to the rest of the group that Jesse took over the route that brings him to campus in June, but he’s been with the vending company for almost two years. He also happens to be 27-years-old, coaches his nephew’s soccer team, and has finished a marathon.

He was probably a Boy Scout once upon a time too, and loves his mother, baseball, and apple pie like crazy.

But it’s his occupation that Britta seems to approve of most of all.

“It’s a good honest job,” she tells Annie. “He’s not some slimy stockbroker or corporate drone… or even worse, a slick-talking lawyer with no concept of ethics.”

Jeff can feel her eyes cut to him pointedly, but he ignores her, refusing to acknowledge that he’s listening to even a word of this.

“He is a very nice young man,” Shirley agrees. “He always says ‘God bless you’ when someone sneezes. He doesn’t just ignore it like most of the heathens around here.”

“We’ve only gone on three dates,” Annie points out. “So it’s not like—“

“But you’re going out again, right?” Britta asks. “You’re obviously interested… and he’s obviously interested…”

Annie doesn’t say anything, so Jeff risks a quick look at her – she’s smiling faintly, looking down at the tabletop with an obvious blush on her cheeks as she doodles on her notepad.

Yeah, he fucking hates this guy with a passion.

Which is why, when the meeting wraps up, he doesn’t head home like he knows he should.

As tempting as passing out on his sofa with a glass of scotch and an episode of ‘The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ on the TV is, he makes a detour to the Dean’s office instead.  

His assistant is away from her desk too, so Jeff can just breeze in, no explanation necessary. It’s not as if the Dean’s busy – Jeff can see that he’s got YouTube open on his computer, with a video of a cat doing something cutesy playing silently on the screen.

“Jeffrey,” he says happily as he sits up straight. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Can I have a minute of your time?”

Jeff busts out his most charming smile as he sits down across from the Dean; manipulating someone isn’t that much fun when it’s this easy to do, but he tries to get in the mood.

“Of course,” the Dean declares. He leans forward, lowering his voice. “Is it something _personal_?”

It takes everything in Jeff not to roll his eyes, but he’s able to keep a straight face.

“Actually, it’s about Greendale. About something you can do to show the students and faculty how much their well-being matters to you.”

The Dean cocks his head, eyes narrowed with interest.

“I’m intrigued. Please go on.”

“Well, a student can’t really focus on her studies and a teacher can’t really give his class his all if they’ve got health issues, right?”

The Dean nods, but his brow’s furrowed because he clearly doesn’t understand what Jeff is talking about at all.

“And we know that what we eat plays a big role in how we feel and our overall health,” Jeff says. “So maybe Greendale needs to show a greater commitment to healthy eating. Maybe we—“

“I think I know where you’re going with this,” the Dean interrupts. “And while our financial situation is a bit better than it was last year, I just don’t think we have the money to revamp the cafeteria menu. I’m afraid we’re just going to have to live with cheddar bacon tater tots and deep fried Twinkies for the time being.”

“We don’t have to start that big,” Jeff says, warming up his scheme big time. “What if, for instance, we just changed the offerings in the vending machines? You know, water instead of Coke, granola and protein bars instead of Butterfingers… dried fruit, nuts, you know that kind of thing.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” the Dean agrees. “But that’ll cost money too, won’t it?”

“Actually,” Jeff says, handing a paper across the desk. “We’d just have to switch vending machine supply companies. And I took the liberty of doing a little research. This company offers healthy options and it’s roughly the same cost as our current supplier.”

The Dean glances at the page and looks up with smile.

“Jeff Winger, look at you. So proactive!”

Jeff shrugs casually.

“Why didn’t you bring this to the committee, though?” the Dean asks. “This is usually the kind of stuff you guys—“

“Craig, I know how much you care about Greendale. You would have come up with this idea yourself if you weren’t so busy running this place. So I think you should take full credit. In fact, I insist you take the credit.”

The Dean is practically beaming as he sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest.

“That is so generous of you!”

“Don’t mention it,” Jeff says – and he means that quite literally. He hopes like hell the Dean never mentions this conversation to anyone.

When he leaves the Dean’s office to finally head home, though, Jeff doesn’t really feel guilty.

It’s not like he’s actively sabotaging Annie’s relationship.  She’s already met the guy, is dating him – all that switching vending companies is going to do is keep Jeff from having to see them together every other day when Jesse shows up with his boxes of chocolate and barbecued pork rinds.

It’s self-preservation.

Nothing more, nothing less.

\--

When Annie finds out she’s got the internship at the crime lab, Jeff suggests the group go out to celebrate.

He has no ulterior motive – he knows how important the internship is to her, how worried she was about getting it, and she deserves to bask in the accomplishment for a little while. Because he knows her; it won’t be long before she’s busting her ass to impress anyone and everyone at the lab and then there won’t be any time then for her to enjoy her success.

So they make plans to go for drinks. Annie’s smiling in that pleased, eager little way of hers that always seems to stop him dead in his tracks, so he smiles too and for once, he doesn’t care where they wind up or how many stupid, pointless arguments Britta tries to start after she’s got a few drinks in her or whether someone pukes in the backseat of his car – it’s all worth it if he gets to see Annie look like that.

While they’re trying to decide if someone should drive or it’s better to just get a cab, though, she pulls him aside. There’s something almost shy in her expression now, and she toys with a button on the cuff of her shirt with anxious fingers.

“Hey,” she says, keeping her voice low. “You can say no … it’s totally okay if you say no, but would it be all right if Jesse meets us at the bar?”

It shouldn’t, but the question totally catches him off-guard -- and he kind of hates that she felt the need to ask. It’s bad enough that he’s got to meet the guy – she’s been dating him for over a month now, though, and he’s never been formally introduced to the group so it was only a matter of time before it happened – but knowing about it in advance somehow makes it worse.

“It’s your celebration, Annie,” he says, trying to sound jovial. “You can invite whoever you want.”

She smiles again and reaches out to pat his arm.

“Thanks, Jeff. I know it’s a group thing, but …”

He forces his own smile, and spends the trip to the bar cultivating a particularly apathetic, unaffected attitude to get him through the rest of the night.

When Jesse shows up, he’s still in the gray shirt and pants that he wears for work so he’s probably come fresh from his route. Annie stands to greet him and he kisses her cheek in a doting way that has Shirley cooing with delight. Jeff clenches his jaw, staring down into the bottom of his glass. He really wants to be pissed at Annie, but he knows that’s irrational, that she has no idea how he feels because he still hasn’t told her, that he announced he was marrying Britta in front of her like she would have no reaction to the news at all. Britta would probably tell him that karma’s a bitch, but what the hell does she know?

And the thing is, Jesse is a pretty nice guy, a little low energy maybe and way too docile for someone with Annie’s fire, but there’s nothing especially objectionable about him – and that makes Jeff hate the jerk all the more. He knows that he’s nowhere near good enough for Annie, but that’s partly because it’s hard to imagine any guy could be, including this candy-pushing dumbass.

Because Annie should wind up with someone who’s got more going for him than just not being especially objectionable.

But then again, this guy at least had the guts to tell Annie how he feels while Jeff’s been struggling to do that very thing for over six months.

So maybe that makes him better than the alternative.

When it’s time for another round, though, Jeff offers to go to bar. He rattles off the order to the bartender, keeping his back to the table to give himself a little break. But as he’s waiting for the drinks, he feels someone slide up next to him and when he turns, Mr. Good Guy Jesse is standing beside him with a bland smile.

“I figured you could probably use a hand.”

Jeff smiles tightly.

“That’s really not necessary.”

“It’s no problem. I’m used to lugging stuff around all day.”

Jesse’s expression is all full of self-deprecation, and Jeff seriously wants to punch him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets just in case he’s tempted.

“So Annie says you teach law at Greendale,” Jesse says. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s not that impressive. Believe me.”

“Isn’t it weird, though? That you’re a teacher and everyone else is a student and you’re all still friends?”

“When we all met, I was a student too,” Jeff says. “Actually, we met because we were all in the same Spanish class and we started this study group to –“

“What are you guys talking about?” Annie says brightly, with just a little too much cheer to be natural, as she saunters up next to Jesse.  He drops an arm around her shoulders almost instinctively, and Jeff has to wonder what she thought she might be interrupting. He checks on the bartender’s progress because now he wants to get back to the table as soon as possible. “Anything interesting?”

“Jeff was just explaining he was a student when you guys all met. In some Spanish study group apparently.”

Annie tilts her head, smiling at Jeff fondly.

“Oh? And did he tell you that it was actually a fake study group to begin with that he started only because he wanted to get in Britta’s pants?”

Jeff huffs out a quiet laugh.

“Can’t live that one down, huh?”

Annie shakes her head almost haughtily.

“Wow,” Jesse says. “I’m guessing there’s more to that story.”

“Not really,” Jeff insists.

Annie raises a dubious brow, like she wants to protest or push the issue a bit but she won’t do it in front of Jesse. Fortunately, the bartender brings the rest of the drinks over then and she’s distracted anyway.

Back at the table, Shirley asks her to explain exactly what she’ll be doing at her internship and Jeff leans back in his chair, sipping his scotch as he listens to her rattle off a list of tasks that she’ll be responsible for. She is the only person he knows who could sound so excited about getting to identify hairs and fibers, gunshot residue and bodily fluids, and he feels an embarrassing swell of emotion for her, the kind that makes him think he’s going to just blurt out exactly how much she means to him right here in this shitty bar, in front of all of their friends and her new boyfriend, like a fucking asshole.

Because it’s definitely a dick move to tell a woman you’re into her when she’s with someone else -- but that’s not the reason that he’s backed off from the whole deadline thing, why the idea of telling her now has become even more terrifying.

The simple, shameful truth is that he doesn’t want to tell her with Jesse in the picture because he doesn’t want to force her into some kind of choice, not when he can’t be sure that he’ll end up on the right side of the decision.

He’s still a damn coward.

So he nurses his drink, biting the side of the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything at all. At the end of the night, Annie leaves with Jesse, and he winds up in the backseat of a cab with Abed and Britta, trying like hell not to get dizzy as the scenery flies by outside the window. Eventually, he has to close his eyes and lean his forehead against the cool glass to make the world stop spinning.

\--

From his corner booth, he watches the custodial staff hang shiny holiday decorations along the walls and across the ceiling of the cafeteria. They’re a weird blend of colors – red, green, black, royal blue and silver – because the Dean insists on  covering all of the holiday bases, without actually using any symbols that identify with a particular holiday, so it looks like someone took a box of crayons and threw them at the wall to see what would stick.

It doesn’t matter much to Jeff because he’s not feeling particularly festive anyway. He’s never liked the holidays much, but he’s got even less patience this year – and he tried the whole ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ thing last week, calling up his mother and suggesting they spend Thanksgiving together for the first time in years. She was beside herself at the opportunity to spend time with him, to set the table and cook for him again, which only made him feel guilty and wonder why he keeps his distance from her in the first place.

But he’s felt so out of sorts lately, that he thought seeing her, having her dote and fawn all over him, would help him snap out of his funk, that that feeling kind of devotion would set his world back on its axis again.

And he had a good enough time, letting her pile his plate with turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, and all those other foods he doesn’t normally let himself eat. Later, she pulled out the old photo albums to chronicle his evolution from too-cute-for-his-own-good kid to devastatingly handsome man, which had always been good for an ego boost in the past -- but none of it had the effect he was hoping for.

Because he still feels antsy and off his game -- maybe even a little bit lost.

It’s probably just the lingering effects of all the carbs he ate, he tells himself, as he pushes the spinach leaves around on his plate petulantly. Across the cafeteria, he spots Jesse at the vending machines, dutifully refilling the Coke and Sprite slots. Jeff stabs at one leaf particularly viciously, breaking all but one of the tines on his plastic fork.

He’s about to call it quits on lunch completely when Annie suddenly collapses into the booth across from him, her own container of salad skittering across the table toward him. She doesn’t exactly slump down – which would be strange because she usually has such perfect posture – but she angles her body and hunches over slightly, like she’s trying to make herself even smaller.

“Are you all right?” he asks, amused.

She nods emphatically, tearing open a packet of dressing.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just…” She glances over her shoulder quickly, and he can’t really see where she’s looking but he’s willing to bet it’s at the damn vending machines. “I’m kind of hoping Jesse doesn’t see me.”

He furrows his brow and looks over at Jesse again. He’s moved onto stocking the pretzel and potato chip rows, but there’s nothing else noteworthy about his behavior.

“Why? He plying you with too many Hershey bars?”

She sighs, stopping her painstaking process of squeezing the dressing equally over her entire salad.

“We broke up,” she confesses. “I broke up with him actually.”

It takes all of his self-control to keep from visibly reacting because he’s feeling at least a dozen different emotions pretty strongly at the moment. Still, he schools his features into a solemn expression somehow and nods in a way that he hopes conveys sympathy.

“It just happened Saturday,” Annie continues. “So I think it’s still a little raw.  For him.”

Jeff nods again, glancing back at vending machines.

“Has he been bothering you? Do you think he’s going to—“

“Oh, no!  It’s nothing like that.”  She shrugs a little helplessly. “I know I made the right decision, but I’m worried that if he corners me and starts in again about how we should give it another chance, I’ll feel bad and just give in.”

“Annie,” Jeff laughs. “That’s crazy.”

“I know! I know! That’s why I’m avoiding him. He’s usually here twice a week. I figure if I just can lay low until about February, it’ll all blow over.”

Jeff grins and leans across the table to whisper conspiratorially.

“I don’t think you’re gonna have to wear a trench coat and dark glasses for the next two months,” he tells her. “Because I have it on good authority that Greendale’s changing their vending supplier to go with something healthier. So you should only have to avoid him for two more weeks, tops.”

Annie perks up, smiling in relief.

“Seriously? That is fabulous news!” She pauses for a second, squinting thoughtfully. “Wait… why didn’t the committee know about this? We usually handle—“

“This was the Dean’s idea,” Jeff says. “So I think he just ran with it.”

She nods like that makes perfect sense to her and starts to dig into her salad.  He is completely off the hook now, he thinks – because the way things ended up, getting Jesse off campus turns out to be the best thing for everyone. He’s practically a humanitarian for saving both Annie and Jesse from the awkwardness of having to see each other regularly.

He’s feeling pretty good about himself in general at the moment, but he reigns in his smile because even though she did the dumping, he knows Annie can’t be too happy about things not working out with Jesse.

“So…” he says, fiddling with the cap on his water bottle. “What happened? Why’d you pull the plug?”

She makes a face, like she doesn’t particularly what to rehash the details.

“I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right, I guess.” She shrugs. “I mean, he was really sweet, but in the end, we just didn’t have enough in common.”

Jeff nods in understanding, even as he tries not to smirk – because he’s pretty sure that “didn’t have enough in common” is just a polite way of saying the guy was lousy in bed.

Well, it is in his mind anyway.

“I could say something really trite and clichéd about how there are other fish in the sea and all that crap, but you already know that so I’m not about to insult your intelligence.”

She looks up from her salad, smiling softly.

“Thanks anyway.”

They grin at one another across the table, and he feels some of his equilibrium restored.

“You know, I once broke up with a woman and then had to see her immediately the next day,” he says. “In a courtroom… where I got her off on DUI charges.”

Annie tips her head back and groans.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Don’t get so high and mighty,” he laughs. “You dumped a guy a couple of days after Thanksgiving… right at the start of the holiday season.” He shakes his head mournfully. “I always had you pegged as a heartbreaker.”

“A heartbreaker?” she scoffs in disbelief. “We didn’t even date for two months. I don’t think any hearts were broken.”

“I’m not sure Jesse would agree. Maybe I should go over and ask him about it.”

He makes like he’s going to get out of the booth and head toward the vending machines, and Annie practically shrieks, grabbing his arm and pulling him back down.

“Don’t you dare, Jeff!” she half growls, half laughs. “You’re such a jerk.”

Her fingers curl around his wrist, holding him in place, as she peeks over her shoulder again to make sure they haven’t been noticed. She looks back at him with a smile, her cheeks flushed in the ugly cafeteria lighting, and maybe his world hasn’t tilted fully back on its axis, but it shifts closer to center than it’s been in a long while.

\--

Shirley’s grandmother breaks her hip, and because she’s all alone in her retirement community in Phoenix, Shirley makes plans to go down and take care of her. Andre even agrees to let her take the boys so she decides to leave immediately and stay through New Year’s.

But that means she won’t be around for the holidays, so the group has to move their party up to the second week of December. She feels so bad about it that she insists on hosting it at her new apartment despite everyone telling her that it’s fine to just go to a restaurant or a bar so she doesn’t have to do any work.  She won’t even let them bring anything, but Jeff takes it upon himself to sneak in a bottle of brandy to spike the eggnog.

Britta sinks down on the couch beside him after he’s already helped himself to a few glasses, so he’s feeling good enough that the sour look on her face doesn’t even faze him.

“Okay,” she says. “What’s with you?”

He blinks at her slowly.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You’re in a disturbingly good mood,” she accuses. “And you hate the holidays, so it’s especially weird.”

“I may hate the holidays, but I’m a big fan of eggnog.” He lifts his glass toward her. “Especially when it’s 20 percent nog and 80 percent brandy.”

Britta snorts, splashing her own egg nog on her hand.

“I’m serious, Jeff. You’ve been in a good mood for a couple of weeks now… and it’s creepy. I don’t like it.”

He laughs, shaking his head.

“Am I supposed to apologize or something?”

“No, smart ass. You’re supposed to explain yourself.” She raises a brow pointedly. “Let me guess -- there’s a gymnast or yoga instructor with poor impulse control involved, right?”

He smirks and is about to unleash some really clever retort, but Annie chooses that precise moment to breeze in, distracting them both. She had to finish a shift at the lab, so she’s a little late and looks a little frazzled as she slips out of her coat. 

“I know we said no presents this year,” she announces as she reaches into her bag. “But Hanukkah starts on Tuesday and I just wanted to do a little something.”

She makes her away around the room, handing out small bags of foil-wrapped chocolate gelt to everyone. He gets up to pour her a glass of eggnog, and she comes up beside him at the punch bowl just as he finishes. She’s smiling but glances around the room at the others as she presses the little mesh bag of chocolate coins into his hand.

“Don’t let anybody see yours,” she orders in whisper.

“Why?” he asks, though he obediently stuffs the bag in his pocket to hide it.

“I got you the expensive dark chocolate kind with cinnamon and orange. Because I know you’re a chocolate snob.”

He grins, patting the bag through his pocket.

“I’m not a snob,” he says. “I just have good taste.”

She takes a sip of her eggnog and shrugs.

“To-may-to, to-mah-to.”

He notices then that she still has her ID from the lab clipped to her shirt and points at it. 

“As riveting as this discussion of my chocolate preferences is, how’s your internship going? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

When she grins then, he finds himself mimicking automatically, like it’s contagious.

“It’s amazing, Jeff. Seriously amazing. I don’t even know where to start…”

She figures it out quickly enough, though, and he spends the rest of the night listening to her gush about the post-mortem drug tests and tool marks analysis she did this afternoon. It’s not the most interesting conversation he’s ever had with her, but she’s so excited that he kind of feels it too.

On the drive home, he unwraps one of the chocolate coins she gave him, letting it melt on his tongue so he tastes each and every note. It doesn’t disappoint.

\--

For once, Britta is right.

He has been in a good mood lately.

For about a month, it’s just the fact that Jesse is officially out of the picture – both out of Annie’s life and off of Greendale’s campus – that has him feeling pretty good. He doesn’t feel the need to push things; he doesn’t feel the need for some indefinable something more. Basically, he doesn’t want to rock the boat.

But then, fate seems to intervene, and he winds up spending more time with Annie than he has in the past couple of months and that persistent, longing feeling that dogged him all summer and early fall is back in full force.

One night, he gives her a ride home because her car is in the shop, getting new brakes. She asks if he minds stopping at the grocery store on the way so she can pick up a few things and they wind up doing their shopping together. He disapproves of the sugary cereal she claims is for Abed and she teases him about the high protein pancake mix he throws in the cart. When they wind up in the frozen food section so she can pick up berries for her morning smoothies, he watches her breath crystallize in the air in front of her as she reaches into the case and he wants to tell her everything he’s ever thought or felt about her in his life. But then  they bump into Rhonda, the Dean’s assistant, who spends nearly fifteen minutes complaining about him in the middle of the paper goods aisle so the moment is lost.

Still, when Jeff drives away from Annie’s apartment later that night, he feels very much like a loser.

One morning, they wind up having coffee all alone in the cafeteria because Britta, Abed and Shirley have all come down with the flu that’s spreading among Greendale’s population even faster than gossip. He and Annie both feel a sense of superiority over the fact that they aren’t sick – he attributes it to his healthy diet and demanding workout routine; she credits all the vitamin C that she takes. It also turns out that they watched the same sleazy movie on Lifetime about a teacher who sleeps with one of her students and then tries to frame his girlfriend for his murder the night before and they wind up reciting some of the most painfully awkward dialogue to one another until they’re both laughing a little breathlessly. Annie even confesses that she had a crush on her physics teacher her junior year of high school, so she was always pretending that she didn’t understand the lessons and staying after school for his tutoring sessions just to spend time with him.

“And then at some point, I guess I had this epiphany,” she says. “You know, that if I had to pretend I wasn’t as smart as I was to get someone’s attention, it probably wasn’t worth all the trouble. So I stopped going to the tutoring sessions but I got straight A’s the rest of the year. I think Mr. Mugno thought he was the greatest teacher in the world or something after that.”

She laughs, shaking her head with the kind of self-deprecation that makes him wonder if she realizes how amazing she is, that makes him want to tell her that she’s the most amazing woman he’s ever known.

But Duncan shows up, spilling coffee all over the table, and Jeff’s too busy trying to get the stains out of his sweater to tell her anything.

Late one afternoon, just before campus closes for the holiday break, he’s in his office, grading his last batch of finals. He’s frustrated and annoyed, and all he wants to do is go home, turn on “A Christmas Story” and fall asleep on his couch, but then, there Annie is a the door, dropping off a plate of holiday cookies that she’s somehow found the time to make between taking finals and helping solve actual crimes. They’re shaped like little candy canes, glittering with red and white sugar in the cheap fluorescent light, and it’s started to flurry a little outside, so there’s snow shimmering in Annie’s hair too and all he wants to do is kiss her, shove everything off his desk, lay her across it and cover her body with his.

She checks her watch, though, and says she has a few books that she needs to return to the library before it closes and is gone just as quickly as she came.

He tries to tell himself that he’s not a coward -- he just doesn’t want to tell her something so important when he’s feeling rushed, when he has to get the words out between traffic lights or sips of French Roast coffee. 

But he knows that’s not the whole truth.

It may not even been half the truth.

He is a fucking coward, who should know better by now.

He nearly blew it last time by waiting too damn long.

He can’t wait that long again.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

\--

He decides he needs a new deadline, and Annie’s birthday makes the most sense because it’s another fresh start of sorts.

Of course, he waits until the very last minute, her birthday itself, to even think about telling her.

Shirley’s still in Phoenix and Rachel is visiting family in Denver for the holidays, so it’s just Jeff, Annie, Britta, and Abed around to celebrate it, which makes it feel like a weird kind of double date even though none of them are actually dating. He suggests they go to a trendy new lounge downtown because he suspects Annie would prefer something a little less casual than the usual dive bar and not quite as loud and meat market-y as a club with crappy house music.

And he’s right because when she slides into the velvet-covered booth beside him, she’s smiling all small and soft, looking around the room to take in every detail. Her hair is doing that loose, wavy thing he really likes and she’s wearing a navy brocade halter dress with a retro feel that almost makes it feel conservative and reserved – or would, if it wasn’t her lush body poured into it, threatening to spill over the top. She looks as lovely as he ever remembers, and it’s not just because of her hair or the dress. It’s because she has the most expressive face he’s ever seen, one that can’t hide anything that she’s feeling, so when she’s really and truly happy like she is now, she’s beautiful in a way that he doesn’t think any woman has ever been for him.

But he forces himself to look away, so everyone at the table doesn’t catch on to where his head is at. Instead, he focuses on the tile mural on the wall opposite their booth, trying to figure what the hell the painfully abstract design is supposed to be.

“This place is interesting,” Abed says, looking around. “It would make a great set for some kind of thriller. With some film noir inspiration.”

Britta directs a smirk Jeff’s way.

“Why am I not surprised you’d pick a place like this? All slick and hipster-y and--”

 “I love it,” Annie declares emphatically. “And it’s my birthday so that’s what matters, right?”

“Absolutely,” Jeff agrees. “Let’s get you a drink so you can really start celebrating…”

He signals the waitress so they can order, trying to ignore the rush of adrenaline through his system when he thinks about what could happen tonight. It should be the easiest thing in the world, telling her how he feels -- something that she’s guessed at at least once or twice, something that no one else will probably be surprised to hear -- but his mouth feels dry and his hands are shaky and his brain can’t seem to conjure up a single sentence that makes any sense.

What he can’t go over when he looks over at her, sipping the celebratory Kir Royale he bought her and laughing at Abed’s impression of the new security guard on campus, is how content she seems, how relaxed and carefree. Annie’s usually so tightly wound that even when she should be enjoying what’s going on around her, she’s too busy thinking about what’s coming next. So it makes him wonder if it’s really fair to drop a bomb like this on her birthday, especially considering that he’s got no idea what kind of feelings his revelation might dredge up, what kind of reaction she might have.

He doesn’t want to ruin her celebration. He doesn’t want to ruin everything.

For most of the night, he’s able to postpone a decision. It’s not like he’s going to pour his heart out with Abed and Britta sitting across the table, but a couple of hours into the celebration, Britta excuses herself to go to the bathroom and Abed heads into the other room to check out the jazz band, so Jeff and Annie are alone. She’s had a few drinks, and her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright, and he honestly can’t think of a single thing to say.

“I’m so glad you suggested this place,” she tells him. “Really. What does Britta know?”

He laughs, probably a little more than he should.

“I’ll assume that’s a rhetorical question and refrain from answering.”

She nudges his foot with the tip of her shoe.

“Don’t be mean. It’s my birthday.”

He nods slowly, and he wonders if that’s some kind of sign from the universe to hold steady. He taps his glass against the table just for something to do.

“I’m sorry it’s just the four of us,” he says. “Probably doesn’t seem like much of a party.”

She shakes her head.

“No. I like it like this. Simple. Intimate.”

If he didn’t know better, he’d think that she was flirting – but it’s Annie, who’s usually brave enough to be much more straightforward than that so it’s more likely than he’s seeing what he wants to see, reading into nothing.

“And it’s gotta top your birthday,” she says. “You know, waking up in a hospital bed with all of us crowded around, gawking at you...”

He stiffens a bit, hitting the underside of the table with his knee. The memory isn’t something he’s ever really comfortable revisiting, but now it sets off a chain of thought that’s more than enough to stall him, like his age and a possible midlife crisis and asking Britta to marry him and a million other small but still significant details that make him the worst possible choice in the world for Annie.

“Oh, God,” she groans, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking… I’ve been drinking and I shouldn’t have brought that up when—“

“Annie, relax. It’s fine.” He somehow manages a tight smile. “You’re right – this is much better than my birthday.”

She studies his face for a moment, trying to gauge his mood, but eventually smiles back like she’s been properly reassured. The heat that radiates from the center of center of his chest makes him a little dizzy, but Britta saves him from doing anything stupidly impulsive, coming back from the bathroom with a story about a drunken woman doing pirouettes in one of the stalls.

At the end of the night, Jeff’s able to drive everyone home because he’s only had a couple of drinks.  Abed and Annie’s is the last stop, and Abed is quick to get out, mumbling something about a movie starting in a few minutes that he wants to catch. Annie lingers in the front seat beside Jeff after he’s gone, looking a little pensive.

“I had a great time,” she says after a moment, her voice low like she’s confiding a secret. “Thanks, Jeff.”

She says it like he’s responsible for all of it, whatever fun or happiness she was able to find tonight, and when she leans across the car to hug him, it’s pure reflex that has him holding onto her like she might disappear. She feels warm even through the heavy wool of her coat and he really doesn’t want to let go at all, but she pulls away eventually, still smiling.

“Have a good night.”

He watches as she opens the door and steps out onto the sidewalk, feeling strangely paralyzed. It’s not until she’s nearly made it to the front steps that he finally snaps out of it and rolls down the passenger window.

“Annie,” he calls after her, and she turns, head tilted thoughtfully. “Told you I wouldn’t miss your birthday.”

She laughs softly and nods.

“I guess you do manage to keep some of your promises,” she says.

She gives him a little wave then and heads for the building again. He waits until he’s sure that she’s made it inside before he finally drives away.

\--

He gets another chance to tell her just a few days later.

On New Year’s Eve, she tells him that she’s going to some dive bar in her neighborhood to celebrate. They’re having a karaoke contest, and Abed and Rachel, just back from Denver, plan to enter, so she’s going to play cheerleader. When he asks if he can come along, she seems taken aback by the question, going silent for a few seconds on the phone before coming back with a cheerful, enthusiastic, “Sure!”

The place is packed, but they manage to get a rickety table near the back corner. Abed and Rachel have plans to work their way through an entire set list of terrible duets, starting with ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ and ending with ‘Islands in the Stream.’ He and Annie, though, are content to spend the evening at the table, laughing at the show and drinking really cheap champagne that winds up giving him a headache barely halfway through the festivities. Annie looks over at him, though, and smiles, all soft and tender, and everything seems to get very clear and sharp, like the world is in perfect focus for once.

“I’m surprised you wanted to come,” she says. “I figured you’d have somewhere better to be tonight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs, grinning playfully.

“Don’t you usually ring in the New Year at one of those expensive clubs where you need to get your name on the guest list a year in advance?”

It’s the perfect time to tell her the truth – that all of his plans have somehow changed because of her – but he finds himself fiddling with his glass instead.

“I guess I’m getting old,” he tells her. “And boring.”

He says it out without thinking, and they’re both very clearly caught off-guard. She eyes him with concern for several long, heavy seconds, because she hasn’t forgotten he wound up in a hospital less than a year ago when he couldn’t cope with his ever advancing age – she made that clear just the other night on her birthday. But fortunately, she doesn’t seem any more interested in discussing that particular topic than he does and plasters a big, overzealous smile on her flushed face, bumping her shoulder against his.

“Boring?” she laughs. “Come on, Jeff. You’re one of the least boring people I know.”

He nods amiably because he’s not really interested in getting into that either and goes back to sipping his champagne. Annie toys with the napkin under her glass, curling the edge around her finger.

“Got any resolutions?”

Yeah, he thinks. To finally be honest with you for once.

“Nope,” he says instead. “There’s not much room for improvement here.”

Predictably, she groans and shoves at his arm.

“Jeff! I’m being serious.”

He smirks unapologetically.

“What about you? You probably get really formal, write them down and everything.”

She wrinkles her nose like she’s offended.

“I don’t… I’m not …” She huffs out a breath. “Fine. Yes. I write them down. I find that writing down your goals is a good thing. It makes them more tangible so you stay committed.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you have much trouble with that.”

She lifts a shoulder as she takes another sip of champagne.

“Well, what are they?” he asks. “These resolutions you’re afraid of not following through on?”

“I’ve wanted to take a kickboxing class for a while now,” she says. “I’ve kind of mastered karate so I figure it might be a good alternative. So I resolve to try that this year. Oh, and get a passport. So I’m ready to travel if the opportunity presents itself.”

He bobs his head in approval.

“That’s a good one. I’ll use that one – I resolve to get a passport too.”

“You can’t just steal my resolution!”

“It’s not stealing. I was inspired, that’s all.” He grins. “It can even be a joint resolution. We’ll do it together. That way, when we’re waiting on an hour long line at the post office, we’ll have someone to talk to.”

She smiles a little reluctantly.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she says. “Want to make the kickboxing one a joint resolution too? We can take a –“

“Annie, please.” He laughs smugly. “I do real workouts.”

“Kickboxing *is* a real workout. God, you’re even pretentious about your stupid workouts.”

“This is probably one of those topics we should agree to disagree on,” he says, with a grin.

But Abed and Rachel make their way back to the table before Annie can actually agree. They’re trying to calculate their odds of winning the contest with some complicated point system that Abed’s developed.

“So I guess I’d put them at 20 to 1,” he says. “And that’s probably being generous. Three of the other teams sing here every week so they’ve definitely got a leg up.”

“You guys were great,” Annie says supportively. “Even if you don’t win.”

Jeff nods.

“I’ve never been so moved by a rendition of ‘Up Where We Belong’ before.”

“You two aren’t going to sing?” Rachel asks, looking between Jeff and Annie – who look at one another too and laugh in unison.

“Oh, no,” Annie says. “My throat’s a little sore because of my allergies so…”

“And I’m not nearly drunk enough,” Jeff explains.

Rachel apparently buys those as valid excuses because she immediately starts conferring with Abed about what song they should sing for the next round. They wind up going with “Don’t You Want Me,” which probably amuses Jeff more than it should. Annie keeps slapping at his arm every time he snickers too loudly, but that only makes him laugh harder.

After the contest winners are announced – and it’s indeed the ringers Abed pointed out earlier --  they head toward the center of the bar where they’re doing the countdown. The bartenders are passing out hats and noisemakers, and Annie insists that Jeff put on a ridiculous glittery red top hat, while she sports a feathery black tiara thing that says Happy New Year in big silver letters. They both look ridiculous – he knows this because she snaps a photo of them on her phone that she refuses to delete even when he complains about the spacey look in his eyes. She tells him he’s an idiot and stuffs the phone in her back pocket where he can’t get at it.

When the clock strikes midnight, though, she turns to him with a tentative smile, stretching up on her toes and leaning into him so she has enough leverage to press a soft kiss to his cheek.

“It’s going to be a good year,” she whispers. “I just know it.”

He freezes again, unable to do anything more than hug her to his side and make a stupid humming sound of agreement. If he tells her now, she’ll probably think he’s doing it because he feels pressured by occasion, to give her belief in a good year validity or something.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to risk starting 2015 off on a bad note.

At the end of the night, Annie decides he’s had too much to drink and shouldn’t drive home. He’s had nothing but that bad champagne all night, but he can’t really disagree because his head feels a little fuzzy. She makes up the futon for him and as soon as he lies down, he wishes he’d gone home – because his feet are hanging off the fucking edge and the pillows smell like Annie’s body lotion or perfume and she’s just on the other side of the wall but he still can’t reach her.

So the new year starts just like the old one ended.

\--

The text reads _Can you come over at 6 tonight?,_ which might normally pique his interest, but he’s learned his lesson since last time, so he isn’t surprised when a minute later, a second text comes through.

_Abed says it’s really important. He’s making me invite Shirley and Britta too._

It’s been snowing lightly on and off all day, so he doesn’t particularly feel like leaving his apartment on a lazy Sunday, but the new semester doesn’t start for another week so he can’t use his teaching responsibilities as an excuse -- and he knows Annie will keep bugging him until he shows up so there’s no use in putting up a fight.

When he gets to the apartment, Britta and Shirley are already there and they’re all gathered around the table with Abed’s laptop in the center.

“Please tell me you didn’t make us all come over here to show us deleted scenes from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ again,” Jeff says, pulling out a chair.

“No,” Abed answers automatically. “But I do have the director’s cut if you want to—“

“Abed,” Annie says kindly. “Maybe you should just get to the point. What’s going on?”

Abed doesn’t answer, though – he starts typing on his laptop, opening up Skype, and then sits back in his chair silently.

“Abed?” Britta says. “Are you just going to sit there or…”

A call comes through then, and suddenly Troy’s face fills the screen. He is smiling in his big, guileless way and it kind of hits Jeff in that moment, how much they’ve all missed him over the past twelve months.

“Hey!” he practically shouts. “You all made it!”

The next couple of moments are nothing more than a cacophony of voices as Annie, Britta and Shirley all gasp in delight and talk over one another as they say hello and ask him how he’s doing and gush about how good he looks.

“Guys, guys,” Troy laughs. “I can’t understand you if you’re all talking at the same time. And this is my big moment so you should really let me do the talking anyway.”

The promise of big news is apparently enough to get the group to fall silent – Britta even feels the need to turn and shush Jeff despite the fact that he hasn’t said a word.

“You probably haven’t been marking off the days on your calendar with big red X’s like I have,” Troy continues. “But—“

“I have,” Abed throws in. “Though I used a blue pen to make the X’s because I’m not a big fan of the color red.”

Troy smiles, nodding.

“Right, because it makes you of that time that the—“

“Guys,” Jeff says as patiently as he can manage. “I’m sure we’re all dying to know the origins of Abed’s dislike for the color red but let’s focus. Troy, you were about to tell us something…”

Troy nods again, his smile growing.

“I’ve made it around the entire world! So I’m coming home… well, in two weeks, anyway. The first week of February. I’m going to miss Groundhog Day, which sucks but I’ve already missed April Fool’s and Halloween and National Chocolate Cupcake Day so I’m kind of used to it by now…” He shrugs. “Anyway, I wanted you guys to be the first to know. Because honestly, I’m not even sure my family realizes I’ve been gone…”

Once again, the room erupts with three or four different voices all talking at once and general chaos ensues – Britta knocks over her chair, Annie spills her bottle of water across the table, and Shirley starts singing some song that praises God for something or other. Troy grins, shaking his head as he makes eye contact with Jeff.

“Nothing’s changed since I left, huh?”

Jeff can only shrug.

“Not much.”

Later, after they’ve all managed to calm down and Troy’s long since disconnected the call, Jeff sits next to Abed on the futon. They’ve been toasting Troy’s return with grape soda (for Shirley and Abed) and tequila (for he, Annie and Britta) and there’s kind of a festive feel to the evening. He pats Abed on the shoulder, throwing back another shot.

“Well, you must be happy,” he says. “Getting your buddy back.”

Abed nods slowly, looking pensive.

“It’s funny, because I didn’t want Troy to go at all, but in hind sight, it’s probably been a good thing. I mean, maybe you can’t really appreciate someone until they’re gone for a while.”

“I thought you guys appreciated each other pretty well.”

“Maybe,” Abed says, but there’s a faraway sound to his voice that makes him seem kind of skeptical.

Annie bounces down onto the futon on the other side of Jeff, smiling brightly. She’s definitely a little buzzed and he laughs at the exasperated way that she bats a stray piece of hair out of her face.

“What are you guys talking about?” she asks. “You look so serious.”

“Absence making the heart grow fonder,” Jeff tells her. “Or some crap like that.”

Annie tilts her head, like she’s considering the idea carefully.

“You think that’s true?” she finally says, and he can’t tell if she’s surprised by the prospect or not.

Abed chooses that moment to get up and head for the kitchen, like he hasn’t been part of the conversation at all, and suddenly, Jeff feels like he’s on the spot.

“I don’t know. Maybe. In some cases.” He lets out a slow breath. “But then in other cases, proximity … you know, seeing someone day in and day out, that probably does the trick too.”

Annie nods almost in slow motion, and her smile has a dreamy, almost seductive look to it.

“Jeff,” she nearly whispers. “Can I ask you something else?”

He feels his heart pounding in his chest and there’s a kind of ringing in his ears, but he manages to play it cool, shrugging like it’s no big deal, and Annie’s grin widens.

“Will you get me another shot?”

He laughs, almost despite himself, because his life is very nearly a joke at this point, and somehow lurches to his feet.

“Sure thing, Princess.”

He can hear her giggling as he stands at the counter with the bottle in his hand, but he doesn’t spill a single drop.

\--

It’s obvious the night’s going to be trouble when he opens the door and finds Annie standing in the hallway outside his apartment with a bunch of rainbow-colored balloons tied to her wrist -- there’s so many of the damn things, actually, that he’s pretty sure a stiff wind could carry her off.

To make matters worse, she’s also holding a giant sheet cake and her arms are weighed down by a couple of canvas totes that are overflowing with bags of chips and pretzels. Still, he tries really hard not to roll his eyes – because she is very clearly frazzled and he knows from firsthand experience that it’s best not to piss her off when her nerves are frayed.

“You know Troy isn’t five years old, right?” he says as he takes the cake from her so she won’t collapse under the weight of the party supplies. “And I thought I made it clear I wanted to keep the guest list to a minimum. This cake looks big enough to feed a couple of football teams.”

She shoots him an exasperated glare, unwrapping the balloons’ ribbons from her arm and letting them fly free across his apartment.

“He’s been gone an entire year, Jeff. If that doesn’t warrant some silly decorations and a seven-layer cake with sugar roses, what does?”

It’s hard to argue with her logic, and really, if he didn’t want all this crap in his apartment, he shouldn’t have agreed to host Troy’s welcome home party in the first place. In fairness, though, there really wasn’t any way to refuse, not without seeming like a serious asshole.

Sure, once upon a time, he used to be so good at saying no – at the firm, he turned down cases that weren’t high profile enough, didn’t guarantee a big enough settlement, or weren’t enough of a challenge, with an ease that all of the junior associates envied. At bars, he turned down women who seemed too complicated, who talked about their kids too much or wanted to make dinner plans for the next night, or asked so many questions that it seemed like they were trying to get his life story out of him, with a sympathetic smile and casual shrug that still left them feeling charmed. With his mother, he turned down offers of holiday dinners, trips to Pagosa Springs to visit her brother, even simple lunch dates, with excuses about being swamped at work so she’d always follow up with concerns that he wasn’t getting enough sleep or eating right or needed a vacation so he could take a little time for himself.

But even more impressive than saying no in the first place was that he never felt an ounce of guilt about it. The word rolled off his tongue and his back with speed and effortlessness so he never gave any of it a second thought.

Somewhere in the past six years, he’s gone embarrassingly soft.

Now, as much as he might want to say that two-letter magic word, he is filled with doubt – and even on those rare occasions when he manages to say no, he always knows that it’s just a matter of time before his friends wear him down and he’s agreeing to some brand of insanity or another.

The group’s also caught onto the fact that having Annie ask for whatever it is they want is the fastest way to turn his no into a yes.

So it’s really no surprise that she was able to talk him into letting them have Troy’s party at his place with barely a day’s notice.

(Apparently, their apartment is out of the question because Troy and Abed’s reunion celebration was so over the top that the place is covered in wall-to-wall silly string, packing peanuts, Skittles, and purple sequins and Annie swears it will take at least a week to really clean up. Britta refuses hosting duties because one of her cats is nursing a stomach virus and she thinks the stress of strangers in the apartment might be too much, and Shirley’s new apartment is so small that it didn’t seem like the best venue for welcoming Troy back.)

Jeff isn’t a total pushover, though – he refuses to do any work.

Which is why Annie takes it upon herself to rearrange his refrigerator, throwing away a couple of questionable-looking containers of Chinese leftovers and a flat bottle of Diet Coke in the process to make room for him to slide the monster cake inside.

“I guess I should just be relieved you’re not forcing me to hang streamers across my living room,” he says.

She makes a tsk-ing sound of disappointment under her breath.

“I knew I forgot something!”

“I think Troy’ll live,” he tells her. “Where is the dynamic duo anyway? I thought they were helping you set up.”

“They decided it was much more important to go off hunting for that stupid obscure beer they like,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “You know, that Japanese one with the horseradish in it?  They dropped me off on the way.”

He groans, heaving himself onto a kitchen barstool, and even he can admit that the sound’s a little melodramatic.

“I don’t have nearly enough alcohol in this apartment to make it through the entire night,” he sighs, even though he’s been pre-gaming it for the past half hour or so to prepare himself -- but he’s only had two glasses of scotch, which is pretty much a normal night for him so it hardly even counts.

Annie rolls her eyes.

“You’ll be fine. Britta said she’s going to borrow a few bottles from the bar. And Chang claims that he’s bringing some stuff too. I didn’t ask for specifics because I’m pretty sure it involves something illegal.”

“Chang’s coming?” He sighs again. “I knew I should have insisted on full veto power over invites.”

She shrugs and starts to empty her tote bags, spreading bags of chips and pretzels across his counter.

“He kind of, sort of, helped with the whole saving Greendale thing last year,” she points out. “Plus, he overheard Abed telling Neil about the party. There wasn’t much we could do.” She looks up, pinning Jeff with a knowing stare. “Besides, I’m *so* onto you, Jeff.”

For a moment, it’s like his entire body feels hollow and weightless because everything inside him is twisted up in knots in his stomach. It’s been nearly a year now – nine months and twenty-six days if he’s going to be exact – since he jumpstarted Borchert’s computer through the sheer force of his feelings for Annie and she is still blissfully unaware. After her birthday and New Year’s, he’s lost some of his nerve, he thinks – because all he sees when he looks at Annie now is how together her life is, how happy she is with her internship and finishing her forensics degree, and inserting himself in the middle of all that, with his completely aimless, directionless life, seems like it’ll do nothing but throw her off course.

And most days, it’s easy to pretend that everything is normal between them – she acts like nothing’s changed because as far as she knows, nothing has and until he’s ready to tell her how he feels, that’s the way he wants it to stay.

Sometimes, though, she looks at him like this, in just such a way that convinces him she’s about to put it all together.

He doesn’t know if he’s terrified or relieved by the prospect.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why he still hasn’t told her.

“What does that mean?” he asks, trying to sound as disinterested as possible.

Her smile tells him that he hasn’t quite pulled it off.

“You love to act like you’re too cool for school, but you’re going to have just as much fun tonight as anyone.” She bobs her head emphatically. “Because you love us and like spending time with us.”

He laughs, relieved and amused.

“Wow. You’ve really got my number.”

She lowers her head, but he can see that she’s grinning.

“You’re not as hard to figure out as you think, Jeff.”

He wonders if that’s true – because if it were, wouldn’t she have figured out how he feels by now?

Lately, he’s also been wondering if trying to set a deadline to tell her, planning out the whole thing, is part of the problem. Because, really, he’s never had much use for plans. He’s a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy, so he should probably just play this the same way -- stop looking for the perfect moment and just let it happen.

He looks at Annie, who stands in the middle of his kitchen surveying the spread that she’s set out on his counter -- there have to be at least eight bags of chips, four bags of pretzels, three jars of salsa, and two tubs of French onion dip and he feels a little sick just looking at all of it – and he’s pretty sure that this isn’t that perfect moment.

“You think this is enough?” she asks. “Britta’s bringing hummus and some kind of kale chips or something, and Shirley’s making homemade pizza dip and fancy pigs in a blanket, but I don’t know how many people Abed and Troy invited. What if we run out of food? What if there isn’t—“

“Annie,” he says, pushing himself off his stool and heading for the fridge. “It’s a party. All anyone’s going to care about is whether there’s enough booze. Speaking of which…” He reaches into the refrigerator, pulls out a bottle of his favorite imported lager, and holds it out to her. “I think you could use a little… to take the edge off.”

She eyes the bottle suspiciously.

“What’s that saying? Beer than liquor, never been sicker… liquor than beer, you’re in the clear.”

He smirks.

“Come on, Annie. You should know better -- that’s not based on any real science. You’ll get sick if you drink too much of anything.”

She flips her hair over her shoulder almost haughtily.

“I’d rather play it safe.”

“So you think you’re going to be hitting the hard stuff tonight?” he asks, amused. “Okay, fine. I’ll make you a drink.”

He slides the beer back in the fridge and takes out the orange juice instead, bringing it over to his liquor cabinet. He could go the easy route and make her a Screwdriver, but he knows Annie – she’ll appreciate the way a Tequila Sunrise looks more, which means she’ll enjoy the drink more too. It’s just his luck that he’s got a half full bottle of grenadine – from when, he has no idea. The cap’s all sticky so he’s got to muscle it off, which means it’s probably been around for a while -- so he gets to work shaking the tequila and OJ together. He’s aware of Annie’s eyes on him the entire time and can’t help putting on a show.

“Another thing you’re good at?” she calls from the kitchen.

He glances at her over his shoulder.

“Before the whole fake lawyer thing,” he says. “I actually bartended for a while. So I know how to make just about any drink you can imagine.”

Her snort is so loud that it actually echoes in his empty apartment.

“Seriously? I can’t see that at all.”

He pours her drink into a glass over ice, grinning.

“Why’s that so hard to believe?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “It just seems like the kind of job you’d think is beneath you.” She tilts her head, studying him intently for a moment. “But you must have cleaned up with tips.”

He shrugs, even if he is pleased with the assessment.

“I did all right.”

He slowly drizzles the grenadine into the glass and waits for it to sink to the bottom to create the impressive red and orange layers before presenting it to her. He smiles as she takes the glass, lifting it so she can study it from a few different angles.

“It’s so pretty!” she declares. “I almost don’t want to drink it.”

“You’ll insult the bartender if you don’t drink it, Annie.”

She takes a sip almost reluctantly, but the corner of her mouth lifts in a crooked smile.

“This is really good,” she admits. “You must’ve been some bartender.”

He leans against the counter beside, and maybe he’s crowding her into the corner of the cabinets a little so there’s not much space between them, but she looks up at him from beneath her lashes, not seeming to mind, and he can’t make himself move.

“Does that mean I can look forward to a big tip?”

Flirting with her like this can be second nature sometimes; he doesn’t ever plan it or think about it too much – at least not until later, when he feels like an asshole for leading her down a road that he never really has the guts to walk with her. Annie gazes at him with an expression that’s difficult to read, but she takes a half step toward him and her lips part, like she’s about to say something important, and then --

The intercom buzzes, loud as a gunshot in his quiet apartment, and alerts them that someone is downstairs, ready to party. He drifts away from her and she contemplates the floor, so if this was some kind of perfect moment, it’s fallen apart before he could do anything with it.

The night isn’t a total loss, though.

Because even after the party is in full swing, Annie keeps coming over and insisting he whip up different drinks so she can test his mixology skills -- and it’s ridiculous, how much he wants to impress her with his margarita and Juan Collins, but he’s sampling the goods too so it’s probably just the booze that has him so hungry for approval.

And then at some point, they’re both drunk enough that when she starts bragging about how good she is at tequila shots – a ridiculous assertion, really, because he’s been on the other side of the bathroom door a time or two when she’s wound up with her face pressed to the porcelain due to overzealous tequila consumption – he thinks accepting her challenge of a drinking contest is perfectly reasonable.

And really, it’s probably for the best because sitting at the counter with Annie, throwing back shot after shot, helps distract him from the fact that Leonard’s been in his bathroom doing God knows what for almost half an hour and Chang’s trying on his clothes again and his apartment is very likely getting trashed. It even helps shift his focus from how tight and low-cut Annie’s sweater is and that its lilac color brings out the flush in her cheeks and along her chest pretty spectacularly and that her hair’s come loose from the little clip or pins that she uses to hold it out of her face, falling across her cheek in soft waves.

It’s hard to think about those things when the room’s spinning after all.

When they start arguing over whether Goofy is a dog and why he wears clothes when Pluto doesn’t, though, things start to get really fuzzy. They’re laughing like damn kids, having a hard time catching their breath, and then Annie rests her head on the counter, pillowing it on her folded arms, and he finds himself mimicking her to try to make everything stop whirling around him for a second.

His last coherent thought is that the cool marble of the counter feels good against his flushed face and Annie’s hair, brushing against his cheek now, smells like candy canes.

\---

When he’s finally able to blink a sticky eye open, the only sensation that really registers is searing pain, shooting up all the way from the base of his neck to the top of his skull, like someone’s taken a sledge hammer to the back of his head a time or two.

Moving only intensifies the ache – and makes puking seem like a distinct possibility -- so he tries to stay as still as possible, lying on his stomach with his face pressed into a pillow. His mouth feels and tastes like something died inside of it, and when he groans, it is a rusty, creaky sound that echoes in stereo in his pounding head.

What the fuck happened to him?

He doesn’t have time to figure anything out before things get even stranger – because when he gingerly tries to roll onto his back, he realizes that someone’s bare leg is hiked up over his hip almost possessively, which means he isn’t alone. He pats blindly along the leg beneath the sheets and winds up with a handful of bare ass that makes him suddenly aware that he’s naked too. The leg’s owner doesn’t stir, so he doesn’t get any hint to her identity -- but when he finally manages to squint both eyes open against the harsh morning light, he recognizes the pale blue walls and charcoal bedding of his own bedroom.

At least, he’s home.

Then again, maybe that’s not a good thing -- depending on who the hell is lying next to him, he might prefer being able to round up his clothes and slink away without a word instead of having to wait for her to wake up and realize that he doesn’t exactly want her company now that the deed’s done.

Well, he can only assume it was done anyway because he doesn’t remember a fucking thing.

He turns slowly to try to catch a glimpse of his bedmate without making his head feel like it’s going to implode, but she’s got the comforter pulled up over her face so all he can see is a swatch of dark, shiny hair spilling over the pillows.

He digs a thumb into his temple, hoping to massage some of the ache away, and tries like hell to remember what the hell he did last night, where he went and who he might have picked up. But the pain makes it nearly impossible, so it isn’t until he sees a limp red balloon, bobbing forlornly near the ceiling in a corner of his bedroom, that it comes back to him.

Troy’s fucking welcome home party.

He wasn’t responsible for the guest list so he has no way of knowing who was supposed to show up – which means he can’t really come up with a list of likely candidates for the woman currently sharing his bed.

But then she shifts beneath the sheets and lets out her own anguished groan, and the sound is so familiar that he knows in an instant who she is and the knowledge slams through his body even harder than the pain in his head.

So when the comforter falls away and he finds himself face to face with Annie, the shock of it all is starting to have a numbing effect. Her hair is tangled in her face and she bats it away impatiently, opening one bleary eye to peer at him across the pillows.

“What?” she rasps, blinking against the light. “Jeff?” 

He tries to push himself upright because it seems like he shouldn’t be laid out on his back for this kind of conversation, but it only sets his head throbbing again and sends the sheets falling so they pool just below his hips and give her an eyeful of the goods. She gasps and throws a hand over her eyes, but it must make her realize that she’s naked too because she clutches the sheet to her chest like a shield.

“Oh my God!  Oh God … What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and he knows that the massive hangover that makes him wish he was dead is the only reason he hasn’t completely lost his mind yet. “But I can make an educated guess.”

And his educated guess is that he was stupid and cowardly enough to tell her how he feels when they were both drunk off their asses and incapable of realizing what they were doing. It’s not really a surprise that he could find a way to screw up something this important with someone who means so much to him – he’s only spent a year trying to find just the right way to tell her; why not ruin everything by getting blackout drunk? – but there’s still a pretty crushing dose of self-loathing in his future anyway.

Beside him, Annie pushes herself up against the headboard, groaning again and massaging the bridge of her nose. They both scan the room then, where their clothing is scattered across the floor like a breadcrumb trail back to sanity. He grabs his pillow, intending to fold it in half and shove it behind his head when his fingers run across something lacy wedged between the mattress and the headboard. When he tugs it free, it’s an impossibly pink, lacy bra, and he doesn’t want to get caught studying it too closely but it seems pretty damn skimpy and he strains for a moment, headache be damned, to conjure up an image of what her breasts might look like in it.

Because he must have seen it all last night even if he has no memory of it.

“I think this is yours,” he mutters, holding the bra out to her.

She snatches it from him and folds it up carefully so it’s nothing more than a small pink square in her lap. He watches as she rubs at her temples again, looking like she’s torn between throwing up and freaking out in a big way.

“The last thing I remember,” she says quietly. “Is having a conversation about ‘Top Chef.’”

He squints, trying to remember.

“That sounds familiar.”

“The rest is just a blank,” she continues. “And I mean… that doesn’t seem *sexy* in the slightest.” She frowns at him. “Does it?”

He sighs, shrugging halfheartedly, and he has to look away because the whole thing is starting to become a little too real – especially when he glances over at his nightstand and spots a couple of torn condom wrappers next to the lamp. He grasps them between his fingers, holding them up so she can see.

“At least we were careful,” he says lightly, because maybe a joke can help lighten the mood.

But Annie doesn’t look at all comforted. In fact, she looks like she’s going to break down in tears at any minute and his head throbs again and it’s not fucking fair because every time he’s envisioned this scenario, she was a hell of a lot happier afterward and he wasn’t about to puke and no one had forgotten what happened.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Maybe nothing actually happened. We obviously drank a lot and when a guy does that, it can be difficult to, you know, *rise* to the occasion.  So maybe we started to fool around and I couldn’t—“

She cuts him off with an emphatic shake of her head.

“No,” she whispers, shifting awkwardly against the headboard. “I’m pretty sure you rose to the occasion just fine.”

She would know, he guesses. He’s run out of comforting things to say and positive ways to spin this – because the cold hard facts are that they got trashed and fucked.

There really isn’t any way to sugarcoat it.

And it’s pretty much all his fault because if he’d manned up and told her how he felt nine months ago, three months ago, even a week ago, it wouldn’t have happened like this – because if he’d been honest, it would have happened under the right circumstances or she would have felt too awkward to let herself be alone with him when something like this could happen.

The worst hangover he’s had in years is probably not the only punishment that he deserves.

Annie slides to the edge of the bed, trying to keep the sheet wrapped around as she goes – but it only has the effect of pulling it away from him again and she gasps like before, so he drags the comforter up from the end of the bed to cover himself. She scoots the rest of the way out of the bed like it’s on fire, but he’s treated to quick glimpses of both her breasts and ass in her haste to get away from him.

He might feel a small twinge of guilt, but he files the image away for future reference anyway – it’s only fair, he thinks, because the memory of the actual event is lost to him, denying him serious fantasy material.

And when she drops the sheet for a second time as she’s trying to wind it around herself and her breasts are right there for him to admire again, he finds himself laughing at the frantic way she covers herself, almost despite himself, which elicits a glare from her that would probably level most men.

“Annie, we’ve probably seen it all already,” he points out. “So there’s really no need to be so modest.”

She pulls the sheet securely against her chest almost defiantly, holding it in place with a tight fist.

“But we don’t remember it,” she hisses.

That is obviously true, which makes him wonder: if they don’t remember it, did it even really happen?

But it’s probably not the best time for philosophical inquiries. She seems to agree, shaking her head as she bends to pick up her rumpled sweater and jeans from the floor.

“How can you be so calm about this, Jeff? We had *sex*.”

She lowers her voice when she says “sex” even though they’re the only ones in the room and they’re both well aware of what’s happened.

“I’m not calm, Annie,” he says, which is totally true – he’s wanted to flee and lock himself in the bathroom for a solid five minutes now. “I just don’t think it’ll do any good if we freak out at the same time.”

When she sighs, he thinks that it’s probably as close as he’s going to get to her agreeing with him. She sinks down on a corner of the bed in defeat, absently shaking the wrinkles from her clothes. It’s such a fucking mess that he wants to kick his drunk self’s ass for letting it happen when they were both too far gone to decide if it was what they really wanted.

And if he wasn’t sure he was a coward before, he is now – because he apparently needed to get trashed out of his mind to let this happen, even though he’s wanted it, wanted *her*, for the better part of five years, and he’s been painfully aware that his feelings for her are the real deal, the kind of thing that isn’t going to go away even if he ignores it, for almost a year now.

He knew all of that and he still couldn’t find a way to do a damned thing about it, about how he feels, until last night when Dutch courage apparently made him a very brave man.

He spots his underwear on the floor beneath his dresser and slips them on while her back is to him to spare her any more embarrassment. She looks like she’s only a few minutes away from breaking down completely, if her hunched shoulders and lowered head are any indication, so he sits beside her, making sure to keep a safe distance between them so she isn’t any more uncomfortable than she already is – and really, if he’s honest, touching her now just seems strange if he can’t remember anything that happened between them last night.

She shoots him a sideways glance, looking as miserable as he’s ever seen her – he tells himself that it’s because of her hangover, that it’s her headache making her look so pale and uneasy, and not because she’s absolutely horrified at the mere thought of what they did. He tries to think of something to say, something that might make them both feel better, but the ache in his head that makes it seem like his skull has splintered from the inside out has him seriously off his sweet-talking game.

“How did this happen?” Annie asks, sounding so anguished that it’s becoming harder and harder not to take it personally.

“The booze probably had something to do with it,” he says, as glib as ever because that’s usually what he defaults to when he’s out of his depth.

He regrets it, though, when she sighs and rubs at the center of her forehead.  

“We should get dressed,” he suggests. “And get some coffee and Tylenol in us and then we can…”

He trails off because he has no idea what they can do. Trying to force memories of last night to come back to them is pointless, an exercise in frustration, and maybe Annie understands that because she nods slowly and starts to push herself off the bed. He grabs his jeans from their heap on the floor and slips into them, trying to ignore both the pounding in his head and the edgy feeling in his gut.

Because this doesn’t have to mean that everything between them is ruined. He can still salvage the fragile thing that they share, if he’s honest and finally tells her what he should have shared the second that they got out of Borchert’s lab.

He can do it.  He can find a way.

Because he’s backed into a corner and he always seems to thrive under pressure.

But when he turns around, ready to tell the truth for once, Annie’s is on her hands and knees on the floor, the sheet still wrapped precariously around her as she reaches under the bed.  She looks absolutely ridiculous, and in any other situation, he’d smile and allow himself to be amused by the absurdity of it all. Right now, though, he’s actually kind of annoyed.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

She looks up, hair falling in her face again, and he’s pretty sure that she’s blushing. It seems like she’s debating whether or not to answer, so he stares back blankly, trying to look as harmless as possible.

“I can’t find my underwear,” she admits reluctantly.

Of course, he thinks. Because this situation clearly isn’t awkward enough.

Still, he crouches down on the floor on the other side of the bed to aid in her search. There’s nothing there but empty space, though, so he looks under his nightstand and then the dresser before pulling the comforter off the bed and shaking it out to see if there’s anything tangled up in it. 

When all that comes loose is one of his socks, he’s tempted to ask if she’s sure she was actually wearing underwear last night, but he suspects that won’t go over well. Fortunately, just as he’s about to give up, he spots a scrap of pink polka dotted cotton with lacy white trim hanging off the corner of the mirror next to his closet – they seriously made it all the way over there from the bed? How the fuck can he not remember those kinds of acrobatics? – so he tugs them free and holds them out of her.

“Here.”

She stands, pushing her hair behind her ears, and takes them almost hesitantly. Their eyes meet during the exchange, and he’s suddenly aware that they’re both contemplating the fact that he very likely took them off her last night and even though neither of them can actually remember it, everything between them has changed for good.

“I’ll go make coffee,” he says -- because he’s suddenly desperate for a little breathing room, though the kitchen probably isn’t far enough to provide it.

He’s not sure anywhere is far enough.   

\--

On the way to her apartment, they agree that it’s best not to give too much away when they talk to Troy and Abed.

He doesn’t really see why they have to bring up anything about the party to the guys, but Annie’s determined to piece together as much of last night’s events as possible and because neither of them can remember a thing, Abed and Troy are their best source of information – which just goes to show how fucked up the situation is.

Physically, he’s starting to feel a little better. There was enough Tylenol in his medicine cabinet for both of them and that, combined with black coffee and a couple of pieces of toast, has helped dull the ache in his head and settle his stomach. Annie still looks pale and a little queasy, but he’s not sure if that’s due to her hangover or because she still can’t quite come to terms with the fact that they slept together.

It isn’t really fair, but he feels a flash of resentment toward her as he steers the car and she continues to go out of her way to avoid looking at him. While he waited for her to get dressed, he told himself again that the only way to fix this mess was to tell her the truth, tell her that alcohol might have had something to do with happened, but it didn’t have everything to do with it. Not when he feels the way that he does about her – and it doesn’t matter that he was drunk; he knows that whatever happened between them was about the way he feels for her even if he doesn’t remember the specifics.

But she came out of his bedroom in her rumpled clothes just as distraught as she’d been earlier, waking up tangled in his sheets, and now, just sitting in the car beside him, she seems so utterly wrecked about the whole thing that it really doesn’t seem like the best time to unburden himself. Maybe there’s never going to be a best time. Maybe whatever he may have thought Annie felt for him in return, she just doesn’t anymore.

And he really can’t help it if that makes him a little bitter.

But he shoves the feeling down as best he can, trying to think of anything else. Well, not anything – he’s also purposely blocking out the complete and utter disarray in his apartment as a result of the party at the moment too.

Fuck, his entire life is in shambles.

When they get to Annie’s apartment, it’s obvious she wasn’t lying about the place being too messy for a celebration – it looks like the aftermath of a 5-year-old’s birthday party, with all the glitter and toys everywhere. The guys are in front of the TV, still in their pajamas with giants bowls of artificially-colored cereal in their laps, and if he didn’t know better, it would be impossible to tell that Troy’s been gone a year – it’s like they’ve been sitting here like this forever. They look over in unison as Jeff and Annie come through the door.

“Oh, you guys are alive,” Troy calls from his recliner. “We were starting to wonder …”

Jeff looks over at Annie, who laughs nervously and stares down at her feet as she traces the toe of her shoe over a seam in the flooring. She doesn’t appear to be any help at the moment.

“We may be nursing slight hangovers,” he offers, as a meager attempt at an explanation. “So we’re moving a little slowly this morning.”

The guys nod knowingly, so it’s clear they’re not surprised by the news. Annie seems to pull herself together and smooths a hand over her hair as she steps toward the TV.

“Guys, I know this is probably going to sound weird,” she says. “But when was the last time you saw me last night?”

“The last time we saw you or the last time we spoke to you?” Abed asks. “Because they’re not the same thing.”

Annie’s brow creases in confusion and she shoots Jeff a concerned look. 

“Both, I guess,” she tells Abed.

“The last time we saw you, you and Jeff were headed to his bedroom.”

She nods slowly, and Jeff knows it’s taking everything in her not to visibly react. It’s almost kind of amusing, watching her try to pretend that there’s nothing at all incriminating in the fact that the two of them snuck off to his bedroom in the middle of a party, like they do it all the time so it shouldn’t raise a single eyebrow.

“Okay, right,” she says. “And when was the last time you spoke to me?”

“When we were leaving.” Abed squints, trying to remember. “It was 3… no, 3:15-ish. I knocked on the door to see if you were ready to go.”

Annie nods again, and Jeff can practically see the wheels in her head turning as she tries to put all of the information together in a way that makes sense.

“You didn’t open the door, though,” Abed explains. “And Jeff said he’d drive you home later.”

She exhales loudly, but the look she gives Jeff is definitely one of relief and he assumes that it’s because whatever they did, at least they didn’t embarrass themselves in front of the entire party. He smiles reassuringly, so she might start to believe that everything’s going to be okay.

But Abed doesn’t let them labor under that delusion for very long.

“You guys were in the middle of having sex,” he continues, almost blandly. “That’s why you weren’t ready to leave.”

“Abed!” Annie gasps, all high-pitched and breathy. “What… why … Oh, my God!”

“What?” Troy demands, springing out of his recliner in a panic. “Did you see another water bug?”

“No! This isn’t about a stupid bug. It’s about … you know, what Abed said.”

Troy looks confused, but Abed just shrugs.

“That’s what happened. You guys were pretty loud so it—“

 “Oh my God!” Annie cries again, burying her face in her hands.

Jeff isn’t sure whether he should comfort her or not – in the end, he pats her shoulder once, just to show some kind of solidarity, but she refuses to look at him.

“It’s all right, Annie,” Troy says, finally realizing why she’s upset. “Pretty much everyone was gone by then. And earlier, when you guys first left, there was music playing in the other room and Chang was watching the Ultimate Fighting Championship on the TV so I don’t think anyone heard then either. I mean, unless they were at the door. You know, with their ear pressed to it or something. And I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen because someone would have told me. It was my party, after all.”

Annie finally drops her hands from her face, and it’s hard to tell whether she’s nauseous, mortified, terrified, or devastated – maybe a combination of all four. Jeff walks over to the guys, lowering his voice to spare her any more embarrassment.

“Are you guys sure that we…” He gestures aimlessly with his hand. “You know...”

Troy and Abed exchange an unreadable look and shrug.

“Well, we didn’t actually see anything, if that’s what you’re asking,” Troy says. “But it definitely sounded like you were getting lucky. There was a lot of grunting and moaning and bounce-y mattress sounds and Annie kept yelling your name. So unless you guys were moving your furniture around and she really liked the job you were doing, I’m pretty sure you were doing it.”

He’s opens his mouth to respond somehow, but Annie wraps a hand around his elbow and tugs him toward her bedroom.

“Excuse us,” she says in her no-nonsense voice.

“If you’re gonna do it again,” Troy calls after them. “Try to keep it down this time. Our walls are super thin.”

Annie slams her door to let him know how she feels about that particular bit of advice. She leans back against it once it’s closed, sighing loudly.

“This is a disaster,” she whispers. “A total disaster.”

Jeff nods and sits on the edge of her bed because he’s not sure what else to do. It takes a minute, but she eventually joins him, keeping a two-foot gap between them as she wrings her hands in her lap. She definitely seems traumatized by the whole thing, and it has to be more than the fact that they had sex while they were drunk and Abed and Troy know about it.

Maybe he’s misread some signs along the way; maybe she sees him as a big brother – or worse, a father figure – and the idea that she’s actually fucked him is all kinds of creepy and incestuous for her. Maybe he is the last person that she’d choose for herself.

He exhales slowly and turns slightly so he’s facing her. 

“Annie,” he says, as calmly as he can manage. “You need to relax, okay? I know this is … awkward. But we don’t remember what happened, so really, it’ll be really easy to pretend it never happened. Right?”

She shakes her head, but he doesn’t think she’s actually disagreeing with him because it doesn’t seem like she’s heard a word he’s said.

“I just don’t understand,” she sighs. “We’ve spent six years *not* having sex. Why would getting drunk last night be enough to change that? I mean, we’ve been drunk around each other before and this never happened.”

He shrugs half-heartedly, avoiding her eyes. He’s not about to tell her that it’s probably all his fault because he’s been carrying around these feelings for her for months and was too much of a chicken shit to do anything about it, that at some point what happened last night had started to seem like an inevitability to him because his feelings are just that intense.

“I don’t know,” he tells her instead. “But maybe we don’t need to –“

 “Let’s start at the beginning,” she declares, and she turns to face him fully, pulling her leg up under her. “And see what we can remember. Maybe if we do it together, it’ll jog our memory.”

“Annie, I really don’t think—“

“I got to your place about an hour before the party,” she continues, like she hasn’t heard him at all. “Troy and Abed dropped me off because they wanted to go get beer.”

He nods, because she’s so determined to play detective that he doesn’t have any choice but to go along with it.

“You had the cake,” he says. “And I helped you put it in the fridge.”

She hums in agreement.

“And then you made me a drink…”

He can remember that, mixing the tequila and orange juice and grenadine, handing her the glass, and asking her something about a tip. They did shots later, he thinks. Sitting at his counter and laughing about something stupid.  

“I think you complimented my shirt at one point,” he says.

She frowns, narrowing her eyes almost defensively.

“You’ve worn nice shirts before,” she snaps. “Somehow I managed not to ravage you all those other times.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Annie,” he laughs. “This is exactly why I think trying to remember is a bad idea. Let’s not go poking around and make this even more complicated than it already is…”

She pins him with a wide, watery gaze, and his chest constricts painfully, like all of the air is being squeezed out of him.

“Isn’t it driving you crazy?” she whispers. “Not knowing what happened? Not being able to remember?”

Without even thinking about it, he slides closer to her, reaching out to rub his hand along her back – and even though he can’t remember anything from last night, he swears that there’s an electricity in the touch now, jolting through his system until he’s afraid his hand might actually be shaking.

“Yeah,” he admits. “It is. But I just think… no good’s gonna come from trying to force these memories. And I don’t want ruin things between us over something we can’t even remember.”

She’s silent for a long moment, like she’s considering his words very carefully. There’s something almost defeated about her posture, and he wishes he knew how to really fix this mess, make it all go away.

“So we just forget it completely?” she asks. “Act like it never happened?”

“I think that’s probably for the best.”

He’s not sure if he really believes that or not, but it doesn’t matter much -- it seems to be what she needs to hear right now. She pinches at the sleeve of her sweater, tugging at it anxiously.

“And you think we can really do that?”

“We can try,” he tells her – and he knows he doesn’t believe that because he might not remember any part of sleeping with her but he’s always going to be thinking about it when he sees her now, always going to be wondering what it felt like, and that would be true even if he didn’t feel the way he does about her.

“Okay,” she says, nodding. “Right… and we’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” he declares, as convincingly as he can manage. “We’re going to be fine.”

They look at one another, sitting together on her floral bedspread, and it's obvious neither of them is really buying into the certainty. But now that it’s all settled, he’s hit with the urge to get as far away from her as possible, to regroup and lick his wounds a little. He pats her back one more time and stands, feeling as awkward as he has in a long time.

“I should go. I think I’m going to need to sleep for at least two days to get rid of this headache.”

She makes an effort at a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I could come over tomorrow,” she says, and she must realize the way that sounds because she frowns immediately and shakes her head. “To help you clean up, I mean. I know your apartment is a mess and you shouldn’t have to—“

“Don’t worry about it. My cleaning service is scheduled to come Monday anyway. I’ll just leave them an extra big tip and let them deal with it.” He takes a step toward the door. “Okay. I guess that’s it. See you Monday.”

She nods again, and her expression is mostly unreadable, though he suspects that later, when he’s alone at his place, the lost, rattled look in her eyes is going to haunt him.

“See you Monday,” she repeats, raising her hand in a quick wave.

Out in the living room, Troy and Abed are still in front of the TV, but they’ve moved on from Fruit Loops to Cap n’Crunch.

“Hey, guys,” he says. “Do me a favor?”

They turn to him with interest.

“Don’t mention this to anyone. You know, the fact that Annie and I…”

“Did the nasty?” Troy helpfully supplies.

Jeff clenches his jaw, struggling for patience.

“Yeah. That. She’s a little sensitive about the whole thing, so it’s probably better if people don’t know.”

“You must be sensitive too,” Troy says. “I mean, you hit that and have no memory? That totally sucks.”

The look Jeff shoots him must be deadly because Troy drops his eyes to his cereal, shoveling a big spoonful into his mouth as a distraction.

“So it was just a one-time thing?” Abed asks, and as usual, his voice is devoid of any kind of emotion so it’s hard to tell if he’s judging, approving, or just surprised.

“A one-time thing,” Jeff agrees.

\--


	4. Chapter 4

\--

His first instinct is to avoid her because that’s always what he does when anything in his life gets too uncomfortable or messy.

But he told her they would be okay, and disappearing for the next few months probably isn’t the best way to convince her of that.

He also told her that pretending it never happened was the best way to handle it, but he can’t stop thinking about it, trying to remember some tiny detail that’ll bring it all back. Because when he lies in bed at night, he just can’t get past the idea that Annie was here, with him – and it definitely didn’t help that he found a couple of her bobby pins when he was changing the sheets the night after it happened. All he could do was fling them across the room like a petulant kid.

What the fuck’s happened to him, he wonders. Who the fuck has he become?

He starts to think that maybe the answer is just to lay low in general, get a little space between him and the entire group for a few weeks until he feels things settle. Annie can’t take it personally if she’s not the only one he’s staying away from, after all.  Still, he tries to keep it subtle – they usually have lunch in the cafeteria around 1 so he switches his office hours to 1 to 3 so he has to take his lunch break at 12:30.

It’s not so bad actually, sitting alone with a newspaper and enjoying his solitude. It’ll blow over, he tells himself. He is the king of denial, of pretending the messy, complicated things in his life don’t exist – he’s just been a little out of practice with those skills where Annie’s concerned lately. He sips his Diet Coke and wills the caffeine to give him a boost.

Especially when he spots Britta and Abed headed toward him, lunch trays in hand.

“You’re early,” Britta says almost accusingly, as she slides into the booth across from him, making room so Abed can sit next to her.

“I had to move my office hours so I’ve got to eat earlier.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? We would have gotten here sooner.”

He shrugs.

“I didn’t want everyone to have to adjust their schedules just because of me.”

Britta snorts loudly.

“Um, excuse me? Since when don’t you think the entire world revolves around you?”

 He gives her his most condescending smirk, but doesn’t bother to respond.

“Does anyone actually come to your office hours?” Abed asks.

“Every once in a while, someone shows up. The beginning of the semester is usually busiest because they’re trying to kiss up.”

“Oh, and you’re above such ass kissing?” Britta snarks.

“I didn’t say that. But it takes more than showing up and asking some questions to get on my good side. You know, like…”

He trails off because Abed starts waving a hand through the air, and when he looks over his shoulder, Annie’s headed toward the table, looking at least as self-conscious as he feels.

So much for laying low.

She hesitates for a moment beside the booth when she realizes that she’ll have to sit beside Jeff, though Britta and Abed don’t seem to notice. Eventually, she does drop down next to him – because really, it would be pretty strange if she didn’t – but there’s a few feet between them on the bench so it’s not as awkward as it might be.

“Hey,” she says as brightly as ever. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Britta tells her. “We were just discussing how Jeff prefers for his students to kiss his ass, that’s all.”  

Annie makes a sound that he thinks is supposed to be a laugh and toys with the straw in her soda a little frantically – but again, he’s the only one who seems to notice.

“Also, he moved his office hours so he has to eat lunch earlier,” Abed throws in. “But he didn’t tell any of us.”

“Jesus,” Jeff groans. “Do we have to tell each other everything? Because I don’t think it’s—“

“What are you all doing here already? I thought I was early today.”

Shirley frowns down at them, standing beside the booth with her own cafeteria tray, and now he suspects lunch will devolve into another session of reassuring her that they weren’t intentionally leaving her out.

“Jeff changed his office hours,” Abed explains. “So I guess we’re eating at 12:30 now.”

“Oh,” Shirley says, smiling. “Oh, all right. That’s fine.”

She sets her tray down on the table beside Annie, and before there’s really time to realize what’s happening, Annie’s sliding toward Jeff to make room for Shirley. By the time they’re settled, their legs and arms are pressed against one another and he feels his face warming and his grip tighten around his cup as he tries not to react.

But then Annie looks up at him, and he sees everything that he’s feeling mirrored in her expression, and that only makes things worse. He’s trapped in the booth next to her and he can’t force his way out without some kind of explanation and his mind, which usually churns out excuses at a prolific rate, has grinded to a screeching halt.

“Anyone have any exciting plans for the weekend?” Shirley asks.

He is barely paying attention to the conversation, though he hears Britta mention that a friend from Santa Fe is going to be in town and Abed says something about going to a film festival in Denver with Troy and Rachel and Shirley’s doing a spa weekend with her mother and sister to clear her head for a little while. He wonders if he could tag along with Shirley – a seaweed wrap, deep cleansing facial, and a deep tissue massage could be just the thing to improve his mood.

“What about you, Annie?” Abed asks.

She stays still and silent beside him, though, so she may be paying even less attention to the chatter than Jeff is. He nudges her with elbow, and she jerks to attention, knocking her soda over so he has to reach out and right it before it spills.

 “Sorry,” she says, all flustered and high-pitched. “I kind of spaced out for a second…”

For some reason, that reminds Abed of something he watched last night and the conversation picks up again without anyone calling attention to Annie’s strange behavior -- and none of them seem to notice that she and Jeff stay silent for the rest of lunch, sitting up perfectly straight and stiff to minimize the contact between them.

But he’s pretty sure their friends are the only ones at the table who don’t realize everything has changed between them.

\--

When Greendale moves up one spot in the Colorado Community College System’s ranking – they can now proudly state that they are ranked 13th out of 14 schools – the Dean insists that they go out to celebrate.

It’s not like the Dean ever needs a good reason to throw a party (this is the man who planned a dance to celebrate the fact that Greendale’s volleyball team didn’t go winless when their opponent in the last game of the season had to forfeit because their coaching staff all came down with shingles after all), but this is actually something of an accomplishment, however minor, so Jeff can’t really blame him for being in a festive mood.

But that doesn’t mean Jeff particularly wants to go and toast Greendale’s new rank. Honestly, he’d rather be on his couch watching the Avalanche lose again – but too many questions are bound to be asked if he blows it off and he’s even less eager to answer those than to just go out in the first place.

Predictably, the Dean chooses a gimmicky bar that plays an endless loop of crappy ‘80s synthesizer pop, and Jeff would really like to hurl himself head first into a bottle of scotch, but as he watches Annie smile at something Shirley says, he decides that he needs to have his wits about him so beer is probably a better option.

Until she takes off her coat and he sees that she’s wearing the same purple sweater that she was the night of Troy’s welcome home party and even though it’s just a coincidence, he decides that any alcohol at all is probably a bad idea if he doesn’t want to do something stupid so he settles for a Diet Coke instead.

 Being sober for the night is going to be torture.

Duncan does a somewhat successful job of distracting him by sharing the details of his first foray into the world of online dating -- apparently, he’s met three women so far, but he keeps forgetting the details he’s lied about in his profile so only one of the dates has lasted more than a half hour. It’s comforting to know that someone else’s life is more pathetic than his, Jeff thinks, even if that likely makes him a shitty friend.

Most of the party heads to the dance floor to groove to A Flock of Seagulls, and even drunk, he wouldn’t be up for that, so he goes to the bar to freshen his Diet Coke. The hockey game is on, so he sits for a minute and watches a little of it. It’s not like they’ll miss him out on the dance floor, and a little distance from the group is probably a good thing tonight.

When Duchene whiffs on a particularly juicy rebound, though, he curses a little louder than he intends and he hears Annie laugh just over his shoulder. He turns and she’s standing there with a nervous, little smile and an empty glass in her hand.

“I didn’t know you were a hockey fan,” she says.

He smiles tightly, looking back at the TV.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he answers -- and it comes out sounding sharp and almost accusatory even in the loud bar.

Annie doesn’t seem to know how to react, if her wide, darting eyes are any indication. The bartender saves her, though, coming over to take her order.

“Another seltzer with lime, please.”

Jeff watches as she hands over her dirty glass.

“Playing designated driver tonight?”

“Something like that.” She nods toward his soda. “You too?”

“One hangover bad enough to make me consider a self-lobotomy a month is enough for me. I’m laying off booze for a while.”

She forces a smile, bobbing her head a little frantically. He doesn’t really know what possessed him to refer to their ill-fated night, however vaguely – because it certainly isn’t going to make things any less awkward or uncomfortable. But then, he’s always liked pushing people, testing their limits.

Maybe he wants to push Annie just to see how hard she’ll push back.

The bartender slides her fresh drink in front of her and she wraps her hand around it, almost like she’s hoping that it’ll help steady her. But she does something he’s not expecting then – she slides onto the stool next to him and looks over at the TV along with him, like she’s actually interested in Tampa Bay’s penalty kill. He knows she wants to bolt just as much as he does, but it’s like she thinks the only way to get past the awkwardness is to force it. He doesn’t have any better ideas so he sips his soda and tries to focus on the game.

“I went to an Avalanche game on my very first date,” Annie blurts out when the silence apparently gets too to be too much for her.

He looks over at her, not sure what to say.

“I was fourteen and didn’t know anything about hockey. But the guy… his name was Kyle … he was obsessed. So he ignored me for pretty much the entire game and I had no idea what was going on so I was completely bored.  It was pretty awful.” She laughs, shaking her head. “I did catch a T-shirt when they shot them into the stands with one of those gun things, though. So it wasn’t a total loss.”

 Jeff grins.

“I’m guessing you didn’t become a hockey fan after that.”

“Actually,” she says, her smile becoming a little self-conscious. “After the game, I went out and bought ‘Hockey for Dummies’ so I’d be prepared for next the time. I don’t know how impressed Kyle was, but I know plenty about hockey now. For example, I know what a power play is and where the neutral zone is. I even know what the sin bin is.”

She straightens her shoulders a little haughtily, looking pretty proud of herself, and he can’t help laughing.

“Well, Kyle was obviously an idiot because I’m definitely impressed.”

She tilts her head, gazing at him with the kind of soft, gentle expression that always makes him a little nervous, but he can’t look away now no matter how hard he tries – probably because there’s been so little contact between them lately. Annie lets out a little sigh, and his eyes fall to her lips, and he wonders what it was like to kiss her again, how she felt pressed against him, and he hates himself all over again for doing it and not remembering any of it.

She straightens suddenly and makes a show of looking at her watch.

“Oh, wow… I didn’t realize the time. I should see if Troy and Abed are ready to go.”

He nods and she gives him an awkward little wave before disappearing into the back of the room.

Jeff stays at the bar until the game is over, and when he steps outside into the cold air, completely sober and awake, he realizes he hasn’t told anyone that he’s leaving.

But he doubts they’ll miss him.

\--

He can feel her watching him as he shuffles the pages and staples them together, and he knows that she’s dying to say something, offer up some critique of his collating skills – and it pisses him off so much that he slams his hand down against the stapler with significantly more force than is necessary.

Annie jerks backward, almost like she’s been slapped, and her frown deepens.

He tells himself his annoyance is due solely to the fact that he’s stuck at Greendale at nine o’clock on a Friday night, putting together information packets for prospective students, and that it doesn’t have anything to do with Annie herself. After all, it’s not her fault that he couldn’t come up with a solid excuse when Troy, Abed, Shirley, and Duncan all shared sob stories about places they had to be and things they had to do. So instead of doing at nothing at home, he’s making copies and filling folders with Annie, Britta, and the Dean, which, now that he thinks about, is about the most awkward group of people he could possibly be stuck in a room with.

Across the table, Annie cocks her head, watching him staple another packet, and lets out a little sigh of disapproval.

“If you have something to say, Annie,” he grits out. “Just say it. Stop with all the passive aggressive sighing and frowning, okay?”

For a moment, she looks genuinely surprised at his outburst, but then her eyes narrow and she juts her chin out like she’s ready to do battle.

“I just thought I was pretty clear about the order,” she says, in such a condescendingly sweet voice that he feels his temper flare. “But it looks like you keep putting the campus map ahead of the sample course listing. Do you need me to go over the order again?”

He barely manages to keep from rolling his eyes.

“You really think it matters if the map comes first?”

“I obviously do, Jeff. Or I would have just told you to throw the pages together randomly, wouldn’t I?”

“Gee, you’re right, Annie. It’s obviously such an important use of our time to make sure prospective students read the course listing before seeing the campus map. The order in which they process that information is so vital to their impression of Greendale.”

She exhales through her nose, her mouth set in a grim line, and he can tell how angry she is, partly because he’s right there with her. It’s strange because the anger seems to have come out of nowhere, bubbling up from some unknown source without any warning.  Maybe they would have fought over something like this a month ago, but it’s hard not to trace it all back to that ill-fated night that they spent together, all the repressed emotions and denial on both sides.

The Dean has stopped working and is watching them intently, like they’re characters in his favorite soap opera. Britta keeps stapling, but she eyes them warily.

None of that seems to faze to Annie, though.

“If you didn’t think it was a good idea,” she hisses. “Why didn’t you mention it an hour ago? You know, when I explained it in the first place.”

“Will you cut me a damn break?” he barks back. “I’m here wasting my night helping out so can’t you—“

“If you’re not going to do it right, you may as well not be here. Because we’re just going to have to redo—“

“Are you serious? What the hell is—“

“Whoa,” the Dean cuts in, apparently no longer getting any entertainment value out of their argument. “All this over some maps? Let’s just relax for a minute.”

“Yeah,” Britta says, reaching across the table to grab the stack of packets in front of Jeff. “Just give ‘em to me. I’ll redo them. It’ll take ten minutes.”

Jeff clears his throat, feeling properly chastised, and when he glances over at Annie, her flushed cheeks and downcast eyes seem to indicate that she feels the same.

“What’s wrong with you guys anyway?” Britta asks. “Are you fighting about something?”

“It’s nothing,” Annie says dismissively. “I’m just tired so I’m not in the best mood.” She looks over at him, smiling thinly. “Sorry, Jeff.”

He shrugs, like none of this is a big deal, like it’s not indicative of something serious and deep that’s gone haywire between them.

“I’m not in the greatest mood either,” he admits. “Sorry.”

The Dean grins, closing a folder with a flourish and placing it atop the finished pile.

“That’s more like it. We’re all friends here! No need to fight.”

Jeff nods, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He catches Annie’s eye across the table and she sighs, looking as weary as he’s ever seen her. He assembles another packet, taking care this time to place the course listing before the map before stapling it all together.

\--

He should probably be embarrassed by the fact that it’s barely 11 o’clock on a Saturday night and he’s getting ready to brush his teeth in preparation for bed.

For the past few weeks, though, he’s been doing the whole hermit thing, just staying in and avoiding the outside world for whole evenings at a time. It isn’t like him, but then again, maybe it is more like him that he wants to admit. Because there’s always been something comforting and safe about keeping it all at arm’s length where it seems easier to control.

So when there’s a pounding at his door just as he’s squeezing whitening toothpaste onto his electric toothbrush, his first instinct is to curse.  It’s way too late for anyone to be dropping by unannounced – strike that. There’s no reason for anyone to show up at his place unannounced at all, not when it takes only a few seconds to send a warning text.

But he heads for the door in his pajamas pants with equal parts annoyance and curiosity – and when he presses his eye to the peep hole and sees the shiny, dark crown of Annie’s head, there’s a jolt to his system that practically shorts out all of his higher brain functions.

She looks up as soon as he opens the door and he notices immediately that she’s wearing more eyeliner than usual and darker lipstick and her legs are bare beneath her coat even though it’s still fairly cold in early March.

“We need to talk,” she announces almost imperiously as she pushes past him into the apartment.

He knows his ego is the stuff of legends, but he’s pretty sure she eyes his bare chest with interest for a long, thrilling minute.

“Annie,” he says, because that’s really the only thing he can come up with he notices that she’s wearing skyscraper heels that show off a flash of wine-colored nail polish on her toes.

He wonders if she’s been out for the evening and just decided to stop by on her way home -- because he can’t figure out any other reason that she’d be in his apartment, looking like this.

Especially when she slides out of her coat, throwing it over the back of his sofa, and he sees the dress she’s wearing – it’s nothing more than a few inches of black satin, with off-the-shoulder straps and a hemline so short he’s pretty sure he’ll be treated to a view of her underwear through the slit at the back if she moves at all (if she’s wearing underwear at all; the dress is so tight that it might not be possible). He’s willing to bet that if he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror right now, he’d look like one of those cartoon wolves, all wide, buggy eyes and tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He might even be drooling.

“What’s going on?” he finally asks, feeling confused and turned on and still a little annoyed and not caring much for the combination.

Annie plants her hands on her hips, pinning him with a blazing stare.

“We have to have sex.”

He laughs in utter disbelief because this is the kind of thing that happens in his dreams, not real life.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” she declares.

He takes a breath, trying to get the two or three brain cells that are still alive and kicking inside his skull to actually function.

“Hang on a second,” he says. “I need to get this straight. You came here, dressed like that, so we could have sex?”

She nods firmly, and he studies her for a long moment, getting sidetracked by the way she’s poured into the satin of her dress, how every bit of it hugs her curves like a second skin, and God damn it, no matter how drunk he might have been a month ago, he should be able to fucking remember what she looks like underneath it.

“Where do you usually wear that dress?” he finds himself asking, because he can’t imagine her wearing it anywhere in public without inciting riots.

“Jeff,” she sighs in exasperation. “I’m serious. If we don’t want things between us to be permanently awkward and tense, we have to have sex again.”

He stares at her blankly, not sure where to even begin.

“Annie. That’s just nuts. You know that, right?”

She crosses her arms against her chest stubbornly, and he can’t help but notice the way the movement pushes her breasts upward, where they strain against her dress.

“It’s not nuts. I’ve thought this all through, Jeff. It makes perfect sense.”

“Things have tense and awkward between since we…” He shakes his head, unable to figure out how to word it. “Since that night,” he finally settles on. “And you think the answer is to have sex again? That’s what makes sense to you? Because I think it’s much more likely that it’ll just make things even more awkward and tense.”

She shakes her head emphatically, and it hits him in that moment how dedicated she is to this idea of hers.

“It’s because we don’t remember it,” she insists. “Because every time we see each other, we’re trying to remember some small, little detail that’s going to bring it all back. That’s what’s making everything so strained.”

“And you think if we sleep together now, we’ll remember it and everything will magically be fixed?”

“Yes,” she declares – but then she sighs, her posture losing a little of its confidence. “Maybe. I don’t know, really. But it can’t get any worse, can it? We can barely look one another in the eye now, Jeff, and we’re snapping at each other for no reason.” She lifts her shoulders almost helplessly. “And if things are going to be so screwed up between us, I at least want… don’t you think we should at least know what it was like?”

It’s one of those uncanny instances when she can practically read his mind – because he’s had that very thought at least a hundred times since Troy’s party. If things are going to be ruined between them, he should at least have a vivid, Technicolor memory of the event to replay from time to time.

He looks at her, beautiful and tempting as hell, and wonders why this all has to be so damn difficult. But he must take too long contemplating her suggestion because her mouth trembles into a frown and she drops her eyes to the floor.

“Unless you don’t want to,” she says in a low voice. “Because you just don’t—“

“It’s not about that,” he answers immediately. “It’s never been about that. Trust me.”

She looks up at him, and what strikes him most in the moment is that she doesn’t look hopeful or adoring or lovesick – she just looks hungry, with her dark, wild eyes, flushed skin, and parted, glistening mouth. It makes him feel hot all over, and he wonders if maybe she’s right. Maybe the damage has already been done so there’s nothing to be lost by taking what they both want.

Or maybe it’s actually a way to fix the damage, to make it what it should have been from the start – he doesn’t really know. All he knows is that he’s not strong enough to say no to her, not when she’s looking at him like that, when she’s so brave and beautiful, willing to do what he’s been too afraid to.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should…”

His head is still telling him it’s pure insanity, but Annie nods, pleased that he’s finally seen the wisdom in her logic. What’s funny is that she’s given him the same look countless times over the years, when she managed to convince him to study for another hour or play nice with Pierce or eat the crust on his pizza for once – and there’s comfort in the familiarity of it, like this is something they do all the time, that they’re not making a colossal mistake. He shoots her a tight smile that he hopes is reassuring, but they just stand there in the middle of his living room, looking at one another stupidly, because neither of them is quite sure how to begin.  

Annie eventually lets out a slow, heavy breath.

“Can I have a drink?”

He finds himself laughing, some of the nervous energy spilling out of him.

“You need to be drunk to sleep with me?” he teases. “That’s a blow to the ego.”

Her eyes go all wide and panicked.

 “What? No! Oh, God no. I just …”

“Relax, Annie,” he says, heading toward the kitchen. “I’m kidding. And you could definitely use something to take the edge off.”

At the counter, he thinks about mixing her a drink because that seemed to impress her last time, but something simpler is a probably better choice now. Annie leans against the counter opposite him while he opens a bottle of Malbec that he knows she likes and he’s proud of himself because his hands don’t shake at all as he pours it for her. She takes the glass from him without meeting his eyes and there’s something delicate and tentative in the way she sips the wine.

He doesn’t pour any for himself – he wants his head totally clear for whatever’s about to happen.

 “I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.”

He feels it too, something tightening and loosening in his stomach every few minutes, because it’s impossible to pretend this isn’t like freefalling out of a plane, hoping the chute’s actually going to open.

“It’s no big deal,” he says lightly, trying to comfort himself as much as her. “Like riding a bike.”

She tilts her head, and a smile slowly blooms across her face that seems a little more confident. She sets her glass down on the counter and takes a couple of steps toward him, looking up expectantly. She doesn’t touch him, though, and he understands that he has to make the first move – because really, it’ll be the second or third, given that she’s the one who had the guts to drive over here and set all of this into motion.

So he reaches for her face, tracing his thumbs over her cheekbones, and her eyes get all heavy-lidded and sultry, and then he’s kissing her – and it’s not something from a dream or a memory; it’s a sensory experience like he’s never known before because she smells like rich, warm vanilla when she finally wraps her arms around his neck and she feels hot and soft when she presses herself against his body and she tastes fruity and smoky when he licks his way into her mouth.

It takes an impressive amount of self-control not to touch her everywhere at once – but he wants to go slowly so he leaves his hands at her waist, his fingertips sliding against the smooth fabric of her dress as he holds her close.

None of this seemed remotely possible just fifteen minutes ago, and now it’s the only thing that makes any sense.

When she takes a step backward, he follows blindly, keeping his mouth sealed over hers. Somehow, they manage to make it all the way to his bedroom, sliding along the walls without stumbling even though Annie’s teetering on her ridiculously high heels and he barely opens his eyes. They don’t separate until they’re at the foot of the bed, and she slides back to put some space between them. He watches, almost in a daze, as she reaches behind her to tug down the zipper on her dress and then shimmies a little so it falls in a heap at her feet, where she kicks it away with the pointy toe of her shoe and banishes it to a dark, forgotten corner of the room.  She’s not wearing a bra so she stands there in nothing but a tiny pair of black lace panties, like a Goddamn goddess.

Holy fuck, is the only thought his feeble brain can come up with at the moment.

Annie throws her shoulders back and holds her head high, and she might be a little nervous, but there’s almost something challenging in her gaze, like she’s daring him to take a good, long look, defying him to ever forget even a minute of this. He doesn’t need any encouragement to study the full curves of her breasts, the smooth, flat expanse of her stomach, or the sudden flare of her hips, but he loves her boldness, because so much of their relationship is that -- goading one another, pushing and pulling until they meet somewhere in the middle -- so it makes it all feel comfortable, like something they’ve always done.

He can’t resist touching her for long, so he reaches out to brush her hair back over her shoulders and lets his hands linger there, fingertips ghosting over her warm skin. She steps in close, crushing her breasts against his bare chest, and he feels her hands up near his own shoulders, sliding down his back with painstaking precision until she’s cupping his ass over his pajama pants so she has enough leverage to move against in him in the way she wants. He’s pretty sure he’s never been hornier in his life, just knowing she wants this as badly as he does, and he kisses her again, swallowing every frantic, little sound she makes. Her fingers dig into the small of his back, just above his waistband, and even that small bit of pain feels so good that he winds up dry humping against her stomach like some Goddamn kid.

There’s a real possibility that he’s going to embarrass himself before they get to the really good stuff.

When she pulls away from him again, he’s beyond any kind of coherent thought so he just looks at her in confusion, breathing hard and fast. She sits on the edge of the bed and toes off her shoes before sliding back on the mattress toward the pillows. The sheets are all rumpled beneath her because he was lying in bed earlier, and it makes him think of waking up with her that morning when the world turned upside down. She lifts her hips to tug off her underwear, her eyes locked on his the entire time, and he can only stand there like an idiot and look at her, sprawled across his bed like the best kind of gift.

“Jeff,” she says, when she’s apparently gotten tired of waiting for him, and the laughter in her voice is what finally gets him moving, shoving off his pants and grabbing a condom from the bedside table.

It gets lost in the sheets for a while, though, because he’s too distracted mapping his way across her body with his tongue until she’s squirming against the bed and pulling at his hair and he can actually feel the blood humming in his veins.

When he’s braced over her, just about to slide home, and she’s looking up at him with dark, hazy eyes, it’s impossible to believe this has happened before, that they’ve been together like this already, because everything about it feels new and thrilling in a way that he doesn’t think he’s felt in years.

He sees the same amazement in her eyes and somehow, he manages not to look away even as he starts to move inside her.

\--

Afterward, it takes at least five minutes before they can look one another in the eye, though.

The bed is a mess around them -- the fitted sheet’s come loose in one corner and is almost curling over Annie’s arm. One of the pillows is flung all the way against his closet door and the comforter is crumpled on the floor, half under the bed and half under the dresser – and they’re both breathing loud and heavy, and everything feels completely different than it did just an hour before.

If he’s honest, the sex was better than he’d imagined – because despite the fact that she’s older now, he still had her pegged as at least slightly repressed, as someone who’d have to be coaxed into really letting go, which was really assuming a lot because he obviously knew nothing about her sexually-speaking. As it turned out, she didn’t need to be coaxed into anything – she touched and tasted shamelessly, responded to him without an ounce of restraint.

He should have known better – she is always so damn full of surprises.

And now he has to face facts – he had hot, sweaty sex with sweet, innocent Annie Edison and something inside him feels as if it’s permanently shifted. There are a few inches between them in bed and his fingers twitch beside hers, already desperate to touch her again. He doesn’t know what to say now, though. Whenever he imagined sleeping with her, he never made it to the pillow talk. Maybe that was the benefit of being drunk the first time around – no one was sober enough to worry about talking much afterward.

But Annie rises up on an elbow, twisting her fingers in the sheets.

“Did that seem familiar to you?” she asks. “I mean, do you think that’s what it was like the first time?”

He looks at her, sweat still glistening faintly along her forehead and across her throat and shoulders, and despite how much he wants to lick it away, he just shrugs.

“I don’t know. I’m not…”

He’s not sure how to finish the thought, but she nods anyway. She reaches out to trace her fingertips along his bicep, and he practically shivers.

“Maybe we should do it again. See if anything concrete comes back to us.”

He grins at her phrasing, even though it’s probably unintentional, and she mimics him, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

It’s slower the second time – she’s on top now, controlling the pace, and she rides him like she has all the time in the world -- and Jesus, if this ever happened before, there’s no way in hell he’d ever forget it. He manages to push himself upright, so he can lean back against the headboard and lick his way across her breasts until she’s tight as a vise around him and moaning in his ear and his vision goes all fuzzy with pleasure.

Later, when she’s decided that a third time is in order (“For the sake of our friendship,” she tells him with a grin), she’s draped across the foot of the bed, legs dangling off the mattress, and his knees ache from the hardwood floor where he kneels. But she tastes so hot and sharp against his tongue that he can’t make himself move. Every time she tugs on his hair, guiding him this way and that, he feels a jolt right to his cock, even though his hands are otherwise occupied keeping her hips in place.

“That ring any bells?” he asks her afterward as she tries to catch her breath.

She shakes her head against the bare mattress where the sheets have pulled away completely, her smile tired but still sly.

“I don’t think I could forget that.”

At some point, they must sleep for a little while because the next thing he knows, there’s watery gray light filtering into the room and he’s slipping inside her as they lie on their sides in the center of the bed. She hikes her leg up high on his hip, and the new angle makes his breath tremble out of him in a dizzy rush.

No memories shake loose, but he knows neither of them are about to forget any of this.

\--

Driving to campus on Monday morning, he tries to figure out what to say to her.

They didn’t have any real conversation Saturday night, never discussed what happens next or what it all means, and he hates himself for not saying something, for not taking the prime opportunity to tell her exactly how feels.

In his defense, though, he was half-asleep when she slid back into her dress just after dawn so he wasn’t exactly capable of coherent conversation, let alone a heartfelt, emotionally-naked declaration of the contents of his heart.

But he does remember that even with her makeup rubbed away and her hair a tangled mess, she looked beautiful standing beside his bed with her shoes in hand. She told him to go back to sleep, but his hand clumsily circled around her wrist so he could tug her back to him for a sloppy kiss that definitely wouldn’t win him any style points.

“Thanks for the memories,” she whispered, smiling a little shyly, just before she ducked out of the room.

That doesn’t mean he’s off the hook, though. He should have called or texted her later on Sunday -- even a fucking nonsensical emoji of a penguin or a palm tree would have been better than radio silence.

But he spent most of the day sleeping, because he’s almost forty-one years old now and a night of marathon sex takes more out of him than he’d like to admit. (When he rolled over in bed at one point, still exhausted, he found himself wishing that he’d known Annie ten or so years earlier, back when he could have sex or drink all night and only needed a couple of cups of coffee in the morning to do it all over again. But then he realized that ten years ago, Annie was barely a teenager and that brought up all those creepy thoughts that made this seem like such a taboo for the past five years. So basically he needs to go back ten years in time while Annie stays exactly where she is and everything would be perfect.)

He’s barely at Greendale ten minutes when he spots Annie in the cafeteria, huddled over a textbook and a cup of coffee. She is bright-eyed as ever, and even with her buttoned-up blouse and pinned back hair, she’s still ripe with temptation, just like she was Saturday night in her hot, little dress.

Walking over to her table, he feels a little shaky, which is more than a little embarrassing. But he tells himself it’s just because he hasn’t had any caffeine yet and not the fact that he’s nervous as a fucking schoolboy. She looks up when he’s about halfway to her and lifts her hand in a little wave. It’s ridiculous, but he tries to analyze that small gesture for all its layered meaning.

His final analysis – she’s just saying hello.

“Good morning,” she says cheerfully.

He tries to figure out if there’s anything false or forced about it as he sits opposite her and comes up empty.

“Morning.”

He smiles because he doesn’t want her to think he’s feeling awkward and she returns the grin easily. He’s starting to feel seriously freaked out.

“I have a test in an hour,” she says, gesturing toward her book. “I know everything inside and out, but I always panic at the last minute and think there’s something I’ve forgotten.”

“You’re not usually forgetful, though.”

He says it entirely without thinking, so he doesn’t mean it to come out as a reference to Saturday but he can see from the way the color blooms in her cheeks and her eyes darken just a bit that that’s how it sounds.

“Well, sometimes, even I need my memory refreshed,” she says, and he laughs because he’s a little surprised and a little amused.

He leans across the table, then, and lowers his voice.

“Annie,” he starts. “We should probably—“

“Annie! There you are!” The Dean appears beside their booth, smiling gamely. “I wanted a minute to discuss the email you sent on Friday.”

“What is there to discuss?” she says, suddenly all business. “You can’t just throw money around like that. You know that.”

“It’s called a discretionary budget for a reason, Annie. And I am the dean of this school, so it’s up to my discretion to spend it.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Especially since you have no real authority anyway.”

Jeff can practically feel Annie’s ire rising across the table.

“You created the committee to keep Greendale afloat! Now you want to ignore sound advice that’ll do just that?”

“I think you’re being a tad overdramatic, Annie.”

She glares at the Dean, who frowns back, and the standstill is apparently on. Jeff sighs, because he really doesn’t want to get mixed up in whatever this crap is -- he just wants to settle things with Annie.

“What are you two fighting about?” he asks reluctantly.

Annie whips her head toward him, looking more than a little annoyed.

“The Dean wants $12,000 to buy some fancy hot tub for the athletic center,” she says.

“It’s not just any hot tub, though, Jeffrey. It’s got two tiers, so it can accommodate up to ten people at once and it’s got 100 separate jets and six different water pumps to really get the bubbles going. Just think how beneficial it would be for our sports teams to be able to practice some hydrotherapy after their games… and the administration and faculty could probably benefit from a little relaxing too, which is good for the entire school when you think about it. And Annie, as a committee member, I assure you that you would have access to it whenever you like.”

“It’s $12,000!” Annie protests. “The computer lab hasn’t been updated in almost 15 years. We could probably buy at least ten new computers with that kind of money, which would directly benefit the students.”

The Dean clucks his tongue in annoyance and throws his hands up.

“Oh, there’s just no talking to you!” He looks over at Jeff pleadingly. “Can you please try to talk some sense into her? Maybe she’ll actually listen to you.”

When Jeff looks at Annie, her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is a tight, grim line, like she’s just dying for him to try to tell her she’s wrong and give her an excuse to blow up sky-high – and still, for a moment, all he can think about is the fact that she was scratching her nails down his back and bending a leg over his shoulder less than 48 hours ago.

“Well,” he starts to say, and both Annie and the Dean seem to tense. “I’ve got to admit the idea of being able to unwind in a hot tub at the end of a crazy day at this place is pretty appealing…”

“See!” The Dean declares, jabbing a finger at Annie. He turns and leans in toward Jeff. “We could set up a regular time. Maybe Friday nights. I belong to a wine of the month club so I can bring—“

“But,” Jeff says, ignoring him completely. “Blowing that kind of money on a hot tub when it was just about a year ago that we were almost bought out by a sandwich shop probably isn’t the best idea in the world.”

Annie crosses her arms over her chest and shoots the Dean a triumphant, smug smile.

“So,” Jeff continues. “As with all complicated decisions, a compromise is probably in order.”  

“A compromise? What does that—“

“How do you compromise on something—“

“Dean,” Jeff says pointedly. “Don’t you think you could find a hot tub that’s maybe not quite as big? One that costs a little less? Like maybe just a few thousand?”

The Dean cocks his head thoughtfully.

“Well, I suppose…”

“And then, Annie, we can take the difference and buy some new computers for the lab. That way, everybody gets what they want.”

She looks at him skeptically, like she wants to disagree just in general principle, but eventually nods. The Dean lays a hand on Jeff’s shoulder and squeezes.

“See! This is why we need you around here, Jeffrey. You’re always the voice of reason.”

Jeff doesn’t miss the exaggerated way Annie rolls her eyes, though she doesn’t bother to argue.

“So I guess this means I’ll be going hot tub shopping,” the Dean declares, clapping his hands together happily. “I don’t suppose you’d want to come along, Jeffrey? Road test a few …”

Jeff smiles gamely.

“I don’t think so, Craig. I’m pretty busy with classes. You know, teaching, which is the job I actually get paid for around here.”

The Dean pouts his disappointment, but when he scurries off a moment later, he doesn’t seem too upset. Jeff looks back at Annie, and she’s watching him with an almost amused expression.

 “Who knew you could be so diplomatic?”

“Please,” he says, with a smirk. “You’ve seen me work my magic before.”

She tilts her head, and her smile taking on a knowing, flirty quirk. He clears his throat, all full of nerves again.

“Besides,” he continues, trying for a casual tone. “I just didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a brawl between you two. My hair might’ve gotten messed up.”

“The hot tub is still a stupid idea.”

“Let’s see if you’re still saying that after we’ve soaked away a long, horrible day at this place.”

She smirks.

“You don’t think the Dean will mind if I join you two? I certainly don’t want to intrude.”

She’s trying hard not to laugh, and he’s utterly charmed by the way the corner of her mouth twitches just a bit, fighting off a smile.

“You’re a real smart ass, you know that?”

She gives into the grin, and he feels a tightness right in the solar plexus, like all the wind’s been knocked out of him. There’s a long moment of silence then, and he tries to think of the right thing to say, the right way to explain everything that he feels for her, what the other night meant to him. But it seems impossible and he drums his fingers against the table anxiously.

“Oh!” He looks up to see Annie checking the time on her phone. “I’ve got to go. I have to get to the test early. The location of your seat during a test can make all the difference in how well you concentrate.”

He watches her gather up her books, bag, and jacket and slide out of the booth. Apparently, she’s content to walk away without having any kind of conversation about what’s happened between them or if it’s going to happen again, which leaves him more than a little confused.

Of course, it’s probably all his fault for not having the conversation with her the other night. Because maybe she really just wanted to get rid of whatever tension was between them; maybe she genuinely saw it as a one-time thing, and she expects things to go back to normal now. He slumps down in the booth, wanting a scotch neat more than his next breath.

But Annie stops suddenly and takes a step back toward the booth, looking a little tentative herself.

“My memory is pretty good,” she says, looking down at him with those big blue eyes that somehow seem both innocent and seductive. “But if I need help refreshing it again…”

He knows his grin must be ridiculous because he can feel it stretching his cheeks.

“Then I’m happy to help.”

She grins back at him, nods once emphatically, and heads back toward the exit.

He sits there in that booth, not entirely sure what’s happened. But Annie was smiling when she left and he’s still smiling now, so whatever’s going on, he hasn’t completely screwed it up yet.

\--


	5. Chapter 5

\--

It’s two days later, on an otherwise normal, average Wednesday afternoon, that he finds himself in middle of something that feels straight from one of the fantasies he used to pretend he didn’t have.

He’s sprawled out across his bed, shirt and pants undone, and Annie is kneeling on the floor between his legs, sucking his cock like it’s her life’s work – and she devotes herself to everything she does with the utmost passion and focus, so it’s a level of attention that he doesn’t think he’s ever experienced before.

Putting it plainly, she’s rocking his fucking world six ways from Sunday.

It was barely an hour ago that he finished up his last class of the day and found her waiting in the hallway outside. She was reading something on her phone, but she looked up as soon as he towered over her.

“Are you busy right now?” she asked, and he tried to figure out her mood from her expression alone but it was annoyingly blank.

“I’m about to head home, actually.”

“Can I tag along?” She smiled sweetly. “I think I might be remembering something.”

He probably blew through a red light or two on the way to his apartment, but a ticket seemed like a small price to pay for being alone with her as soon as possible.

When he manages to open his eyes and lift his head off the bed now, she’s watching him as she slides her mouth up and back down again, and there is something indescribably hot about those guileless blue eyes cataloguing every hitch in his breath, every clench of his fingers against the comforter, every desperate, little moan that rumbles out of his throat. It gets to be a little too much, actually, so he drops his head back and closes his eyes again, trying just to feel.

She wraps her first around the base of his cock and starts swirling her tongue -- which feels paradoxically smooth as silk and the best kind of rough -- along the length of him as she glides back and forth and he’s not sure but he thinks he’s practically at the back of her throat and her free hand curves around his hip almost as if to guide him up toward her – and he doesn’t know who taught her this, but fuck, he can only be grateful because it’s easily one of the best blow jobs he’s ever had in his life.

But she slows down suddenly, sliding her mouth off him even as she keeps her fingers tight around the base of his cock.

“You can tell me if you want me to do something different,” she says. “You know, if there’s something you like better.”

He laughs, but it’s a strangled sound because breathing is kind of difficult at the moment.

“You don’t need any pointers from me.  Believe me.”

He slides his hand over the back of hair, sifting the soft strands between his fingers, and she gives him a little smile. Then he’s back inside her mouth and back to thinking that this can’t possibly be happening.

Afterward, she climbs up onto the bed beside him as he waits for his heart to stop racing. She runs her fingers along his stomach, grinning in a maddening way that he can’t possibly ignore.

“What?”

“You make a lot of really interesting noises,” she says. “That just seems like something I would remember.”

He pushes up to kiss her, stealing some of her breath even as his mouth moves along her jawline.

“Let’s see what noises you can make,” he whispers against her ear, and she shivers in his arms, her hands clenched in the loose collar of his shirt.

Again, he wonders how this can possibly be happening, how his fantasies have turned to such hot, vivid reality.

Because nothing about this seems like real life.

\--

They barely get the board out of the box before Britta starts complaining.

“I don’t see why we have to play this,” she declares. “It promotes a kind of imperialism I’m just not comfortable with.”

Jeff isn’t particularly enthused about board game night to begin with – and he had an excuse about tests that needed grading all ready to blow it off when Annie told him that Troy would be issuing the invitation, but then the kid was so damn earnest and sincere about wanting to spend quality time with his friends after a year apart that even the most black-hearted son of a bitch couldn’t help feeling a slight tug at his heart strings and Jeff  caved – so he isn’t in any mood to deal with Britta’s ranting.

“It’s just a game, Britta,” he says. “No countries are actually being invaded if we play.”

“But that’s the problem!” She holds up the box lid and points at the block letters at the bottom. “The game of global domination,” she reads. “Whole generations of Americans are growing up, thinking this kind of thing is a game. No wonder the Middle East is such a mess.”

“Yeah,” Jeff says. “It’s all because Obama and Kerry played too much Risk as kids.”

She glares at him.

“I don’t expect you to care about—“

“We can just play something else,” Annie says helpfully.

“Monopoly?” Abed suggests.

Britta regards him skeptically.

“That promotes unchecked capitalism that leads to—“

“Oh God,” Troy groans theatrically and throws his head back like he can’t bear a minute more of this crap. In an instant, though, his expression transforms and he’s actually grinning. “Did I ever miss this!”

He and Britta share a smile then, which magically seems to take a little of the tension out of the room.

“Well, if Risk and Monopoly are out,” Shirley says. “I know my boys really like Candy Land.”

“I’m sure Britta can come up with some sugar or high fructose corn syrup conspiracy to veto that one,” Jeff deadpans.

“Excuse me for having a social conscience. It’s not like—“

“What about Clue?” Annie asks. “It’s just figuring out who done it. There are no geopolitical or economic implications whatsoever.”

Britta shrugs.

“I guess…”

Of course, deciding on a game is only half the battle because an argument instantly starts over what character everyone is going to be, particularly when Abed decides that he should assign the game pieces based on personality traits. Jeff isn’t sure what to make of the fact that he gives him Professor Plum, but he takes the piece without a word.

Just as they start to set up the board, though, Annie stands.

“I’m going to get a bigger bowl for the chips. So we don’t need to keep refilling it.” She turns her pleading eyes on Jeff, and he sits up a little straighter. “It’s on the top shelf.  Get it down for me?”

He sighs, channeling a little of his frustration into it, but honestly, getting a moment alone with Annie is likely to be the high point of the evening. So he follows her into the kitchen, watches as she opens a cabinet, and then reaches around her to grab the big blue bowl from the top shelf. When he hands it to her, she’s smiling in an unmistakably flirty way and he glances over his shoulder to make sure everyone at the table is still focused on the game.

They haven’t actually had any discussion about flying under the radar with their friends, but Jeff’s pretty sure she sees it the same way he does – it’s best to keep their relationship under wraps until they’re a little more comfortable with it themselves.

(And then there’s the whole Britta issue -- he isn’t sure if it’s something that he needs to address in an attempt to be just the slightest bit sensitive or if addressing it with Britta will only make it seem like a bigger deal that it actually is for her and she’ll wind up feeling self-conscious and accuse him of being an egomaniacal douchebag.

Which is why he’s found himself wishing that Annie had been just a few years older when they met – 22 or 23 would have done it, because then he wouldn’t have seen her as off-limits from the start and she and Britta likely would’ve been neck in neck for his attention in that fateful Spanish class and Annie seemed to warm to him faster than Britta did, so he would have just focused on her and then there wouldn’t be any of this awkwardness with Britta now.

Of course, if he’d gone after Annie in that first year, he probably would have blown it with her a half dozen times by now and maybe ruined it all for good. Maybe that line about things working out the way they should isn’t just a feel-good platitude. Maybe there’s a small, miniscule grain of truth in it sometimes.)

He leans back against the counter, watching as Annie dumps the chips into the bowl he liberated for her.

“Could you be any more miserable?” she asks wryly.

“You know me, Annie. Do I seem like the kind of guy who’s gonna get enthused about a night of board games?”

“Not even a little bit,” she agrees.

“So?”

“I’m just saying. It could be a lot worse. You’re with your friends, having good clean fun…”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” he says, pushing away from the counter to smirk down at her. “I don’t like my fun all that clean.”

It’s kind of fascinating to watch the color spread, hot and vivid, across her cheeks and the way she lowers her head in an attempt to get her hair to hide the blush. She’s nothing like the woman who was throwing her clothing around his bedroom like pieces of confetti last night.

“Well, then,” she says, after a moment. “Maybe we need to make it a little more interesting for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you win at Clue, you get to call all the shots the next time we’re ….” She tilts her head, like she’s trying to figure out the best way to word it. “Trying to remember,” she settles.

He grins.

“Okay. And if you win?”

“Then I get to call the shots.”

He looks at her, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the floor nervously, and he knows she’s feeling a little unsure. But she’s still determined to charge ahead anyway – and that’s what he’s always admired about her, how she can be uncomfortable or afraid but she doesn’t often let that stop her from doing what she wants. It’s easy to respect that, considering that he turns and runs whenever the going gets even a little bit tough.

“That does make things more interesting,” he says. “And I’m really not sure which outcome I’d like better.”

She laughs, shaking the bowl so the chips settle in an even layer.

“But what if neither of us wins?” he asks.

She shrugs, patting his arm as she brushes past him.

“We can just flip a coin.”

He watches her stroll out of the kitchen, and for a minute, he just stands there, staring after her like an idiot. Eventually, he pulls himself together and goes out to the table, more invested in a game of Clue than he’s ever been in his life. 

\--

He tells himself not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

When the girl – Woman, he corrects himself. She is most definitely a woman – that you’ve been lusting after and losing your head over for years (no matter how deeply you may have been in denial about that fact) wants to keep having sex with you without attaching a single string to it, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot to complain about.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as that.

The fact that Annie hasn’t tried to have a single conversation with him about their relationship, hasn’t asked how he feels about her, hasn’t tried to explain how she feels about him, doesn’t seem exactly right to him. It just doesn’t jive with everything that he knows about her – because if truth be told, he expected her to ask him to define their relationship the very next morning after she came to his apartment, to explain what sort of future he sees for them.

And he can’t lie – he’s relieved that he hasn’t had to answer those questions yet because, while he thinks he knows those answers somewhere deep down inside, he’d have a tough time putting it all into words.

Which is ridiculous, given his reputation for a silver tongue, but maybe that’s the problem.

Over the years, she’s seen him give plenty of empty speeches to get what he wanted, to tie a complicated, uncomfortable situation up with a neat, little bow so he could move on – no matter how pretty or persuasive his words were, why would she believe them, think they’re anything other than a way for him to get what he wants and keep her in his bed?

But then, he’s not a grand romantic gesture kind of guy either. He doesn’t do flowers or candlelight, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate or skywriting, cheesy love song playlists or jewelry hidden in desserts – it’s just not who he is.

But he thinks that maybe he can show her in small, little ways each day, so that eventually, it’ll all add up to something bigger and she’ll know exactly what she means to him. Their present situation, without labels or too much formality, gives him plenty of time to do that – and without any pressure.

It’s kind of perfect.

So what the hell could he possibly complain about, he thinks as he watches her step back into a pair of impossibly small blue lace underwear as he lounges in his rumpled bed. There’s probably something seriously wrong with him too, because watching her redress is nearly as erotic as it was to undress her an hour earlier.

And that’s the other thing – there’s even less to complain about if the woman that you’re sleeping with is always dressed like she’s about to do a photo shoot for Maxim.

Because Annie’s been hiding some pretty interesting things under her simple V-neck sweaters and pinstripe trousers – like panties with silky ribbon ties at the hip that fall apart with the slightest tug, plunging, semi-sheer bras that make her breasts look like they’re being served up on a silver platter, and one time, an amazing navy blue bustier-corset type thing that rendered him speechless for a solid minute. And that’s not even mentioning all the red lipstick and smoky eye makeup and perpetually tousled hair that all scream sex.

That first night that she showed up at his apartment in that unbelievable dress, he figured it was a one-time thing, just something to mark a pretty momentous occasion, but while it’s subtler now, it hasn’t stopped and something about that doesn’t seem exactly right to him either.

It’s not that he doesn’t like it, love it even, on a purely superficial level – he’s a guy and he can’t really help his Pavlovian response to tiny scraps of lace and satin on a stunning female body – but he can’t shake the idea that this isn’t the real Annie, that she’s just playing some part. He doesn’t really want to bring it up, though, because maybe it’s something she’s trying out, trying to get comfortable with, and he doesn’t want to make her doubt herself.  

He watches her now, trying to shake the wrinkles from her pants with great care. She’s completely focused on redressing to the point where it’s almost like she doesn’t remember they were having sex just ten minutes earlier – and it bothers him for some reason, how quick she is to leave, even though he’s always appreciated women who could take a hint and hit the road in the past.

“You hungry?” he asks, when he can’t take the silence anymore. He checks his phone – it’s only after nine so it’s still early. “Want to get something to eat?”

She looks at him over her bare shoulder and shrugs.

“I should get back,” she says. “Troy and Abed are going to notice how long I’ve been gone. Well, Abed will. And then he’ll tell Troy and it’ll become this whole big thing.” She bends and picks her shirt up from the floor. “They were also mixing energy drinks with Pixie Stix when I left, so I’m kind of afraid they’ll wind up dead if I leave them alone too long.”

Jeff frowns, needlessly rearranging the sheets at his hips.

“Do you ever think about moving out of there?” he asks, trying not to sound like a disapproving father. “You spend at least half your time babysitting them.”

Annie nods without hesitation as she buttons her shirt.

“I dream about having my own place all the time. But I’ve only got $3300 in my savings account right now and even studio apartments around here in a decent neighborhood are at least $600 a month and that’s not even counting utilities. And Suze Orman says you should have an emergency fund that covers at least six months of expenses so…”

He smiles, because of course she’s fiscally responsible like that and has a strict budget that she adheres to.

“Troy keeps talking about buying a house lately,” she continues. “You know, with the money he inherited from Pierce. And he wants us all to live there and I really don’t want to get sucked into that. Because that just seems so permanent. Troy’s got a pretty short attention span, though, so I’m hoping he’ll forget about it in a week or two.”

Jeff shakes his head.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you haven’t killed them by now. I would have done it a few times over.”

She smiles and crawls back onto the bed beside him, resting her hands on his thigh over the sheets so she can lean in and kiss him.

“That’s because I’m much more patient than you are,” she whispers against his mouth.

He cocks his head, regarding her skeptically.

“You didn’t seem all that patient earlier, though. In fact, I think there was a little begging going on.”

She gasps in outrage, though the sound dissolves into laughter as she smacks at his chest.

“I don’t think you want us to start holding the things we say in bed against each other, Jeff. Because you never shut up.” She scrapes a nail over his nipple so he shudders just a bit. “Remember all that stuff the other night about how you wanted me to—“

“I remember,” he tells her, kissing her again mainly to shut her up.

He deepens the kiss and threads a hand through her hair to hold her close. His hips start to move a little, the friction of the sheet and her jeans enough to make him feel pretty good, but she pulls away from him with a sigh.

“I have to go,” she says breathlessly.

She pats his chest and bounces off the bed, smoothing her hair to make herself presentable again. On her way to the door, she stops and leans against his dresser so she can slip on her shoes. When she looks back at him, she’s smiling wistfully.

“When I get my own place,” she says. “I’m definitely getting a bed this big.” She nods toward his California King. “Even if it means I can’t have any other furniture.”

Jeff grins.

“You expecting a lot of oversized guests?”

She lifts a shoulder slyly.

“Nope. I want the space for me. So I can really stretch out.”

He laughs -- because she could lay starfish-style in the center of his bed and there’d still be room for a couple of other people – but she doesn’t seem to take offense.

She just smiles and goes on her way.  

\--

Sometimes, when he needs a little time to himself, he hides out in the old study room.

No one but the committee uses it these days, so it’s always empty when they’re not meeting. Of course, he does have an office all to himself, which would seem like a pretty good place to get some time alone, but most of his students know where it is and the Dean loves to pop in unexpectedly and Duncan shows up every so often to share his online dating failures so it’s not quite as private as he’d like.

The study room isn’t working as well as he’d like either, though, because he’s just settled himself in his usual chair, feet propped up on the table as he plays a little Bejeweled on his phone, when Troy saunters in.

 “Jeff, hey! Have you seen Annie?”

“Why? Something wrong?”

“Nope,” Troy answers.  He holds up a sugar cookie with bright pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles. “I just wanted to give her this cookie to celebrate her good news and it’s getting to the point where if I don’t find her in the next two minutes, I’m gonna eat it myself.”

Jeff drops his feet from the table and sits up.

“What good news?”

Troy’s eyes widen a little, like he realizes he’s said something he shouldn’t. Jeff drops his feet from the table, straightening up.

“She hasn’t told you yet? She’s been telling everybody. I mean, she’s pretty excited about it so I guess—“

“Excited about what?” Jeff asks, trying to shrug off the annoyance or discomfort or whatever it is he’s feeling at the fact that Annie’s apparently sharing her news with everyone but him.

“I don’t think I should tell you.” Troy smiles apologetically. “She’ll probably get mad if I don’t let her do it herself. There was this one time when she had a—“

“Where is she?”

“Uh, that’s what I was asking you, dude.”

Jeff sighs in annoyance and heads off to look for Annie himself. She’s always using free moments to study or read ahead so the library seems like a good place to start. But she’s not there – and she’s not in the cafeteria or the student lounge either. It’s a warm day for early spring so he also checks the quad to see if she’s outside reading, but she’s not out there either. He feels like an ass, running around campus just to find her, but he wants to know what her good news is and why she didn’t even bother to send him a text to share whatever it is.

Now, though, he’s got a class in less than a half hour and he should at least glance at the chapters that he’s supposed to be teaching today. He walks back to his office, feeling out of sorts -- which is becoming an annoyingly common occurrence these days -- but he hopes it’s nothing that a drink or two after class won’t cure.

He’s trying to decide if he should drink alone or ask Duncan if he wants to come along when he pushes open his office door and sees Annie sitting behind the desk.

She has a book open in front of her and seems pretty caught up in whatever she’s reading, but she looks up with a grin when he clears his throat.

“There you are,” she says, closing the book. “I’ve been waiting *forever.*”

He shrugs with a tight smile – there’s relief in seeing her here, but there’s still something like resentment coiled in his chest so he’s not about to tell her that he’s been chasing her down all over campus.

“Here I am. What’s up?”

Annie smiles even bigger and brighter, the way she does when she’s truly excited about something, and he finds himself smiling along with her just like that.

“Don’t you love it when everything seems to be going wrong and then something happens and it’s like it all just falls into place perfectly?”

“I do. Can’t say I’ve had that experience much recently but …”

That’s not entirely true – things with Annie literally fell into his lap without him having to do anything at all, after spending months thinking he’d blown his chance, but he’s not about to tell her that either.

“Well, I’m going to pass all of my classes this semester,” she says matter-of-factly. “So I just need to take Science and Law this summer and I will finally have my degree in Forensics.”

“That’s great. We should go out and celebrate … I’ll buy you a drink.”

She tilts her head, and there’s faint color in her cheeks.

“Maybe we should wait until I actually finish to celebrate,” she hedges. “But that’s not even everything!”

He comes around behind the desk and leans back against it in front of her.  

“Okay. So why else are you acting like you won the lottery?”

“My internship at the crime lab ends in next month, but the head of the lab has already asked me to stay on. As a paid employee!”

“What did I tell you?” he says with a grin. “You’ll be running that place in no time.”

She pushes at his knee, as if to tell him to stop, but there is something pleased in her expression.

“But the thing is, there’s only enough money in the budget for me to work part-time right now. I should be able to go full-time in January when they get new funding but until then…”

“Well, that’s a start, right? You show them how indispensable you are in just 20 hours a week and they’ll be holding car washes and bake sales to get enough money to have you there for 40 hours.”

“I’m not really worried about that,” she says, seeming a little self-conscious. “It’s just that it’d be tough, getting by on just a part-time salary for more than half a year if I’m not going to school. I mean, it’s not like full-time entry-level positions at the lab pay that great when you don’t have a Master’s anyway but half of that is just peanuts.”

“You could get another part-time job, though, right? Something flexible, that would work around your time at the lab.”

She beams up at him, nodding.

“I already have,” she declares. “The Dean actually came through for me so I’m going to be working here. The pay is practically less than minimum wage, but along with the lab, I should be able to get by. I mean, I’m used to living on a pretty tight budget.”

“You just can’t get enough of Greendale, huh?” he teases.  “And I teach here so you don’t have to tell me about how little this place pays.  What’re you going to be doing here?”

“I’m going to be a TA for Professor Crangel’s Intro to Forensics.”

“Whoa, hold the phone -- people can get TAs around here?” He shoots her his most charming smile. “I’m a relatively new faculty member and sometimes, it’s a little overwhelming. I could definitely benefit from a little assistance. Maybe we should talk the Dean and see if you can be my TA instead...”

She shoves at his leg again, laughing.

“Jeff, Crangel is like 95 years old – he can barely carry his books to class by himself so I think he needs help a little more than you do.” She cocks her head, studying him with amusement. “Besides, I think you’d have to take teaching a little more seriously before the Dean would even think about giving you a TA.”

He looks at her dubiously.

“We both know I could talk him into just about anything, Annie.”

“Well, honestly,” she says, a little haughtily. “I really wouldn’t want to be your TA. Even if the job came with a six figure salary.”

He laughs.

“Well, that’s just hyperbole… and pretty harsh.”

“Come on, Jeff. We both know what would happen if I was your TA. You’d dump all your work on me while you went and got a massage or a manicure.”

He smirks, because he can’t really dispute that scenario in good conscience.

“Fine, fine,” he grouses. “You go help Crangel and leave me to fend for myself. It’s not like we’ve been friends for six years or anything...”

She smiles, shaking her head in that way that she often does at him, like he’s exasperating and frustrating and annoying but she can’t help liking him anyway. He hooks his foot under the leg of the desk chair she’s in to roll her closer to him.

“Seriously, though,” he says, his voice a low. “I’m happy everything’s working out for you.”

She makes a contented sighing sound, looking up at him from beneath the heavy fringe of her lashes.

“Thanks, Jeff.”

He leans in to kiss her then, but she surprises him by pressing a hand to his chest to hold him back.

“I don’t think we should do that here,” she whispers.

“Do what?” he asks, a little annoyed. “I was just offering my congratulations.”

She raises a skeptical brow.

“I don’t remember you kissing Abed last month when his movie made it to the finals of that contest.”

He shrugs, acting as casual as he can.

“Yeah, well, as much as I love Abed, he’s not really my type.”

Her expression softens a little, her eyes going all warm and hazy, and she curls her hand around his neck to pull him close. Her mouth presses against his carefully, gently -- and it’s over just as soon as it began.

“Happy now?” she asks.

He smiles, but doesn’t answer.

\--

This year, he’s determined to keep an extremely low profile on his birthday.

He knows his friends haven’t forgotten how he spent the day last year, recovering in a hospital from that humiliating combination of booze and fountain of youth pills – he hasn’t forgotten it himself – so the less attention drawn to the fact that he’s now on the other side of forty, the better.

He’s made it clear, in ways both subtle and blatant, that he doesn’t want any kind of fuss made, and they’ve all kept uncharacteristically quiet on the subject, which means they’re either listening to him for once or are planning something particularly painful, with balloons and party hats and possibly a singing telegram.

He’s considering calling in sick to work, just to avoid the possibility.

As tradition would have it, though, his phone rings at midnight, the very second that it’s officially his birthday, and his mother’s on the other end of the line because she always wants to be the very first person to wish him a happy birthday. She doesn’t know what happened last year – there was no need to tell her, not when it would only make her worry – so she’s as cheerful as ever, despite the fact that it’s long past her bedtime.  

“When do I get to see you, honey?” she asks. “So we can celebrate in person?”

“It’s getting close to the end of the semester,” he tells her. “Which means things are kind of crazy right now. But maybe next month, I can drive up.”

“That’d be nice.” She sighs wistfully. “You know, I was just thinking about your 12th birthday. We went to see that movie where Tom Cruise is trying to save unicorns or dwarves or something from Tim Curry, remember? And then the car broke down on the way home and we wound up eating your cake on the side of the road, waiting for the tow truck.”

“I remember,” he says.

“It was a still a good birthday, though. Wasn’t it?”

He’s trying to figure out how to answer when his phone chirps to let him know he’s got a text message – and it’s from Annie, letting him know that she’s downstairs and he should buzz her up, which means he’s saved from answering at all.

“Mom,” he says. “I hate to cut this short, but a friend is downstairs so I should—“

“A friend?” she repeats with obvious interest. “Isn’t it a little late for a social call?”

He smiles wryly – he’s forty-one years old and they rarely see each other, but she’s still his mother.

“I think she probably had the same idea as you. You know, wishing me a happy birthday as soon as possible.”

His mother makes a little sighing sound of surprise, and he’s pretty sure he knows what she’s thinking – he hasn’t even vaguely mentioned a woman to her in years so it probably seems significant.

You don’t know the half of it, Mom, he thinks. I rebooted an entire computer due to the strength of my feelings for her alone. Crazy, right?

“Well, that’s nice, then,” his mother says. “I’m glad you have someone to spend your birthday with. I worry about you sometimes, Jeffrey.  You’re always so busy all the time. I don’t think it would be the worst thing if you slowed down a little, made a little more time for the really important things in life.”

He exhales sharply because he doesn’t understand how she can have any faith in love or relationships or building any kind of life that revolves, even partially, around another person, not after what she went through with his father. But she does, for him and for herself.

She and Annie are alike in that way.

He ends the call with a promise to check in once his schedule opens up and buzzes Annie up when she rings the intercom. There’s nothing wrong with a birthday booty call in theory, which is what he assumes she’s here for, but the fact that she’s probably motivated by worry, that she’s imagining him repeating the events of last year, sort of puts a damper on the whole thing.

Sure enough, when he opens the door, she’s standing in the hallway with a bright smile and a small Tupperware container in her hands. Through the slightly frosted plastic, he can see cupcakes with enormous swirls of frosting piled high.

“Happy Birthday!” she declares. “And now we’re even. Because I didn’t miss your birthday either.”

He grins because he might not want a fuss made, but it’s still kind of nice to have someone go to the trouble.

 “How’d you know I’d be up?” he asks as she brushes past toward the kitchen.

“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “Are you ever in bed before one?”

He smirks, leaning back against the counter to watch as she sets the cupcakes down and works to pry the lid off the container.

“I’ve been in bed before one a lot recently, actually. I just haven’t been sleeping much.”

She looks up at him sharply, licking a smudge of frosting from her thumb. Even in the dim light, he can see the flush on her cheeks, like she’s warmed from the inside out, and her smile is more than a little pleased.

“I didn’t think you’d want a cake,” she says. “Because it would be too much. I thought cupcakes were more informal.” She lifts one out of the container and slides it across the counter toward him. He can see that the pale brown frosting is dotted with tiny chocolate chips and he’s trying to mentally calculate how many calories these things have. “They’re chocolate chip cookie dough. Because I know you have a thing for cookie dough.”

He looks up at her in amusement.

“How do you know that?”

“You never refuse ice cream when it’s cookie dough.”

He grins, watching as she takes a single candle from inside the Tupperware container and sticks it in the top of the cupcake. She reaches into the pocket of jeans for a matchbook and lights it, smiling triumphantly.

“I won’t sing,” she tells him. “But you do have to make a wish before you blow it out.”

He exaggerates an exasperated sigh just for effect, and Annie rolls her eyes. When he bends to blow out the flame, he looks right at her and she smiles in a soft, tender way that he doesn’t even have to wish for.  She reaches for the cupcake again and starts peeling away the wrapper.

“We can split it,” she says. “So you don’t freak out about the calories or fat or carbs or whatever.”

She takes a knife from his drawer and carefully slices it down the middle. She takes half for herself and pushes the other half in his direction.

“Troy and Abed didn’t think it was weird that you went running off with cupcakes at midnight?” he asks.

“I made a dozen of them and only put four aside for you because I knew you wouldn’t want too many. So they were distracted by the fact that I let them have rest.” She shrugs, taking a bite.. “Besides, they were still at the movies when I left.”

He nods and finally tastes the cupcake himself.

“Oh my God,” he practically moans.

Annie grins.

“I know, right?”

“Fuck. This is totally worth the hundred extra crunches I’m gonna have to do at the gym tomorrow.”

She wipes the crumbs away from her mouth and steps into him, hooking her fingers through his belt loops to pull him closer.

“Maybe I could help you burn off a few calories right now.”

And before he even realizes what’s happening, he’s got her spread out across his counter, her shirt and bra pushed up high and her jeans dangling from one ankle. She whips his shirt over his head and tosses it to the floor – she clearly doesn’t want to waste any time because her hand slides beneath his waistband so she can wrap her fingers around him and then she produces a condom seemingly out of nowhere and he’s inside her barely a minute later.

She scoots to the edge of the counter for better leverage, and they rock together, finally slowing down to take their time. When he kisses her, she tastes sweet and rich, like the chocolate from the cupcakes. She reaches down to trace the seam between their bodies and he grabs her hand, sucking her fingers into his mouth. He moans into her palm when he comes, but the sound still echoes in his otherwise quiet kitchen.

“That might be the best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten,” he mumbles against her throat afterward, when they’re slumped against the counter together.

She laughs, scratching her fingers through his hair.

“I have a real present for you. But I’ll give it to you tomorrow. At your birthday dinner.”

He lifts his head despite his exhaustion and glares at her.

“Annie,” he says warningly. “I thought I made it pretty clear that—“

“There wasn’t much I could do, Jeff. The group is pretty adamant about it. But we’re just gonna go to that Thai place you like.”

She doesn’t say it, but he knows they’re adamant because of last year and there’s nothing he hates more than pity. Annie runs her fingers down his back as if to soothe him.

“I did get them to agree not to get a cake, though. So there’s that at least.”

“What if I have other plans?” he asks petulantly.

She shoots him a dubious look.

“With who?”

“My couch,” he says. “And DVR.”

She pats his chest consolingly and hops off the counter.

“They’ll just have to see you another night.”

She pulls her jeans off foot and shakes them right side out so she can put them back on. He looks over at the clock on the microwave.

“It’s pretty late,” he says. “Maybe you should stay.”

She smooths her T-shirt into place and shakes her head.

“Abed’s up at the crack of dawn most days, so he’ll notice if I come in early tomorrow.”

He fastens his jeans, frowning.

 “So you’re not allowed to stay out all night if you want?”

He probably sounds sulky and bratty, but he can’t help himself.

“Jeff,” she sighs. “He’ll just ask all sorts of questions about where I was and who I was with and I—“

“And you can’t just tell him to mind his own damn business?”

She cocks her head, studying him intently as she steps closer. Her hands curl around his waist and she rubs up against him as if to pacify him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she promises. “I’m in charge of getting you to the restaurant, so I’ll pick you up at 7. If that’s okay.”

He nods reluctantly, and he’s probably still pouting when she stretches up on her toes to kiss him but she doesn’t say a word.

After she’s gone, he eats another cupcake alone in bed while ‘Animal House’ plays on the TV. There are crumbs all over his sheets, but he doesn’t care.

It’s his damn birthday -- he’ll do whatever the hell he wants.

\--

At the end of April, Greendale is hit with an unseasonably warm spell and he forgets to adjust his thermostat so they’ve barely taken off their clothes and they’ve already worked up a sweat.

He actually loves it, the way his slick skin slides against hers and swatches of damp, heavy hair stick to her cheek and neck even as she throws her head back and rides him into oblivion. He licks the salt away from her throat, flashing his teeth against the feverish skin just enough to make her shudder in his arms. She grabs the headboard behind him for balance and moves with the kind of purpose that usually earns her straight A’s, faster and faster until the world narrows down to the point where they’re joined.

Afterward, it’s too hot even for the sheets, so they lie next to one another completely naked. He traces his fingertips over her side, mapping the hills and valleys of her body, and she hums contently into a pillow.

“Would it be all right if I took a shower before I go?” she asks, lifting her head. “I’m all gross and sweaty.”

 He grins, because while she’s definitely sweaty, she’s anything but gross.

“Sure,” he says.

He pushes himself out of bed and grabs his underwear from the floor so he can go find her a clean towel.  He leaves it on the bathroom counter and heads for the kitchen, making a quick detour to turn up the AC. It seems like there should be enough in the fridge to throw together some kind of meager dinner that might entice her to stay a little longer, but aside from some honey maple turkey, a couple of eggs,  a nearly expired container of roasted red pepper hummus, and a bag of baby spinach salad mix, he’s got nothing. He’s thinking about placing at rush order at the Chinese place around the corner, but Annie calls to him before he can get to the phone.

For some reason, he finds himself hesitating in the bathroom doorway as he gets closer. He can hear the water running and just make out her silhouette through the frosted glass of the door, and maybe it’s strange because they’ve been sleeping together for almost two months, but there’s something oddly intimate about being in here while she’s showering. She must sense him standing there, though, because she opens the shower door and pokes her head out, smiling shyly.

“Do I have to sign over my firstborn if I borrow some of your shampoo and conditioner?”

He grins, and the joke steadies him enough to allow him to actually step into the bathroom.

“Don’t be silly, Annie,” he says magnanimously, and her smile widens, as if she’s pleasantly surprised that he would be so generous – it’s rare to be able to set her up like this, which is what makes it so fun. “What would I want with a baby?”

She rolls her eyes.

“But I will have to pay a steep price?”

He nods slowly.

“Very, very steep. And try to use as little as possible, okay? That stuff’s expensive.”

She leans her head against the edge of the shower door, looking vaguely amused. There’s steam rising behind her, and her face is flushed a soft pink, hair slicked back against her head. He’s never imagined her here in his bathroom like this, and he wonders why, when she seems to fit so perfectly among all his things.

“Need someone to scrub your back?” he asks, entirely without thinking.

Annie blinks rapidly, looking almost confused by the proposition. But then she’s pushing open the door and he’s shoving off his boxer briefs and stepping into the small, steamy stall with her. She’s tiny in her bare feet, barely coming up to his collar bone, so he stoops down as the water splashes over them and kisses her. Her hands slide down his ribs toward his hips, but before she can wrap her hand around his cock, he reaches behind her for the shower gel and mesh sponge. She’s startled a little when he rubs the sponge over her shoulders, ringing it out a bit so rivulets of water and soap bubbles slide down her chest and over her rosy nipples.

“Jeff,” she says, looking up at him with those amazingly wide, blue eyes. “You don’t have to—“

He turns her around before she can finish, though, and runs the sponge down her back, over her ass. He pushes the wet hair away from her neck and presses a kiss to the back of it, and she reaches a hand behind her, curling it over his hip to hold him in place.

Later, after she’s gone home and he’s alone in his cool bedroom, he thinks of how she felt against him, and it’s a like a phantom pain, all prickly and hot as he tries to fall asleep.

\--

When he teaches his final class of the semester, there’s an overwhelming sense of relief.

He still has two exams to give and a stack of papers to grade, and he’s stuck teaching a 10-week summer course that starts in just over three weeks, but that hardly matters as he leaves the classroom. Making it through an entire year at Greendale has always had a feeling of accomplishment to it, and he feels it even more now as a faculty member.

It’s probably his jovial mood that sends him off in search of Annie. He hasn’t seen her in a couple of days because she’s been studying for finals and swamped at the lab, and it’s left him feeling anxious in a way that he doesn’t like. He tells himself that he’s just horny, but he knows it’s probably more than that, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

Predictably, he finds her in a dim, quiet corner of the library, head bent over a book and a stack of index cards at her right elbow. She has her hair pulled up in a messy bun, a few stray pieces loose around her face, and he stops to watch her for a minute as she studies a particular page and furrows her brow in intense concentration.

“You keep making that face, it’ll get stuck that way,” he teases as he pulls out the chair across from her.

She looks up with a smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Hey, Jeff.” She eyes him suspiciously for a moment. “You’re in a good mood.”

“I am. Because I just taught my very last class of the semester.”

“I guess congratulations are in order then.”

“They are. And now I’m in the mood to celebrate,” he tells her. “Actually, now that I think about it, we should probably be celebrating another of year of Greendale’s existence considering the fact that it was just about a year ago that this place almost turned into a sandwich shop.”

She nods absently, twisting the cap on her highlighter.

“So how about dinner?” he asks. “To celebrate everything worth celebrating around here.”

“That might be nice.” She smiles. “Who’s going?”

He bites at his lip, confused for a minute.

 “You and me?” He shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t ask anyone else. I thought we could…”

He drops his gaze, staring down at the table as he drums his fingers against it. He can see Annie push her book forward like she doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands either.

The mood has definitely shifted suddenly, and he has no idea why.

“You know, now that I think about it, I really need to finish studying.” She taps her highlighter against the textbook. “This final is in three days and I still haven’t finished my flash cards yet so it’s getting to be crunch time. Besides, I wouldn’t be very good company when I’m all stressed about this.”

He nods, trying for a neutral expression. He knows her well enough to understand that studying and academic pursuits are likely to take precedence over everything else in her life, but there’s still an unsettled, tight feeling in his stomach.

“Yeah, okay. I wouldn’t want to come between you and your studying.”

“But maybe I could come over later tonight,” she says, lowering her voice. “Once I finish up here. I could bring pizza from that place by our apartment with the thin crust you like…”

When he looks up, she’s smiling almost hopefully.

“Sure.” He manages to smile gamely himself. “That sounds good.”

They look at one another across the table, and for a moment, it’s like they’re both holding their breath. He shakes his head, pulling himself out of the daze, and lurches to his feet.

 “I’ll let you get back to the books then,” he says.

As he’s walking away, he glances back over his shoulder and she’s watching him, even as he reaches the library exit. He shoves the door open and takes a deep breath before stepping outside.

\--

 


	6. Chapter 6

\--

He gets roped into playing miniature golf with Troy and Abed one night – he refuses to admit that it’s all because he assumes Annie is coming, only to find out once he’s got the stupid putter in hand that she’s stuck at the lab where she’s working hard to distinguish herself in her first month as a paid employee. Fortunately, the course is indoors with a bar attached, so Jeff knows there’s a scotch in his future as he tries to make his way around the waterfall on the ninth hole.

But maybe even better is the fact that Troy shares his and Abed’s plans to go camping that weekend with Rachel and some of her friends just as they’re turning in their clubs. Troy and Abed have never worried much about functioning as productive members of society, particularly during school breaks, but Troy’s inheritance from Pierce allows them to slip even further out of touch with the real world. They have no plans to work this summer because Troy can probably cover their big boy expenses with interest from his accounts alone, so they’ll be gone for an entire week, filming footage for Abed’s various film projects and doing God knows what else.

The information is interesting for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it means that Annie will be all alone in her apartment for seven days. He definitely wants to make the most of her solitude, but he decides to wait because he wants to see what she’s going to do with the freedom – her excuse for always running out of his place after they sleep together is that her roommates will notice if she’s gone too long, so if they’re out of town, there’s really no reason for her to rush off.

On Friday night, though, she tells him she has plans with Britta that she feels bad about cancelling (He wonders all evening what they’re doing, if they ever talk about him when they’re alone, but eventually decides he’s better off not knowing).

On Saturday, she’s watching Shirley’s boys so Shirley can go out to celebrate her sister’s birthday.

On Sunday evening, she claims she’s got too much reading to do for the summer class she’s taking.

On Monday, she says she’s tired from a long day at Greendale and then the lab so she wants to get to bed earlier.

By Tuesday, he’s starting to take it personally. He might be lazy, but it’s not in his nature to passively sit back and just wait for what he wants, so he heads over to her apartment at around ten -- she has class in the morning and he knows she’s usually asleep by eleven on a school night unless she’s cramming for a test or putting the finishing touches on a perfect paper – to make sure he catches her before she’s in bed.

As expected, she answers the door in her pajamas, a little white camisole with lace around the edges and blue and yellow plaid shorts with a half moon and cluster of stars embroidered near the hem. Her hair is loose and her face is red from being scrubbed clean when she peers at him through the narrow crack in the door that the chain lock allows.

 “Jeff,” she says in surprise, and he can’t help wondering who she thought would be showing up at her place this late at night. But then she’s closing the door to undo the lock and opening it all the way to let him inside. “What are you doing here?”

He closes the door behind him and smiles.

“I thought I might be remembering something,” he tells her. “So I was hoping you’d help jog my memory.”

 “Oh,” she says, self-consciously smoothing a hand over her hair. “I’m not really dressed for—“

“Yeah,” he tells her. “You’re good.”

He backs her up against the wall then, and her hands immediately find his hips, as if to steady them both. He reaches out to slowly slide the strap of her tank top off her shoulder, pushing her hair out of the way too, and bends to press his lips against the soft skin. Annie shivers, clutching at the fabric of his jeans, and their mouths find one another in a slow, lazy kiss that leaves him almost breathless. She slides her hands up his side and he buries his face in the curve of her neck.

“I can’t stop thinking about having you in your bed,” he whispers, right against her ear, and she shudders out a sigh. She fists her hands in his shirt and pushes him back so they can stumble together toward her bedroom.

It’s dark inside, with just the small light on her nightstand on, and he staggers around like a drunk, trying to hold onto Annie and make it to the bed at the same time.  She falls away from him, bouncing onto the mattress with a surprised gasp, and he looks down at her, breathing hard. Before he can climb onto the bed over her, she holds a hand up and slides out from under him.

“Wait a minute…”

She turns and starts tossing her collection of colorful throw pillow and stuffed animals off the bed onto the floor. He pulls his T-shirt over his head and toes off his sneakers to keep the momentum going. Annie looks over at him from the other side of the bed, twisting her fingers in the hem of her camisole.

“Sorry about that,” she whispers.

He crawls onto the bed on his knees so he can reach her and tug her up with him.

“For what?”

She blinks, like she doesn’t quite know how to answer, and he decides that distracting her is the best option. His hand slips underneath her camisole, over her stomach and up to cup the full, heavy weight of her breast. He rubs his thumb against her nipple, and she inhales sharply, her head falling backward as she grabs his bicep for support.

Later, when she comes, she groans his name in a needy, frantic way that practically short circuits his brain and leaves him tumbling over the edge with her.

They collapse against the pillows, still tangled together, but he’s able toreach down and pull the sheets over them. He can feel her warm breath against his chest, and he knows she’s waiting for him to grab his clothes and go.

He stays still, though, and closes his eyes.

\--

At least half the reason that he and the rest of the study group ever passed a class was Annie’s extremely effective time management skills. She always ran study sessions with an eye toward maximizing their time, not spreading them too thin, while still ensuring that they accomplished every small, minute task that she deemed vital.

It turns out that she is similarly skilled when it comes to scheduling their sex life.

When she has a two hour break between her summer course and her shift at the lab, she shows up at his apartment barely fifteen minutes after her class is over and gets right down to business. He can only admire her efficiency because she manages to shove him back on the bed, strip him, and roll on a condom in less than three minutes while he’s still trying to get her out of her bra.

He’s still a little dazed when they’re dressing afterward so he almost doesn’t notice that there’s anything amiss with his shirt until he bends to grab his sock from beneath the bed and sees the material gaping open right in the middle of his stomach. He touches the empty button hole, grinning a little.

“Hey, looks like you owe me a new shirt.”

Annie looks up from fastening her pants, brow furrowed.

“Excuse me?”

“In your hurry to get it off me, you tore off a button. So this one’s gotta go in the trash.”

She frowns and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Because one button is missing? Seriously?”

“It’s right in the middle.” He straightens so she can see the gap herself. “My abs definitely deserve to be shown off, but I think I’ll distract my students if I wear it to—“

“No, dummy,” Annie snarks. “I mean, just sew the button back on.”

He glances down at his shirt in confusion.

“Sew it back on?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she groans, throwing up her hands. “Give it to me. I’ll do it.”

He’s amused and more than a little intrigued, so he unbuttons his shirt and slips it off as she rummages around in her bag. She pulls out a little blue plastic case, because of course she has a travel sewing kit with her at all times – she’s always prepared. He sits beside her on the bed, watching as she hunts for the right size white button in her kit to match the rest on his shirt, cuts a length of white thread, and gets the needle ready.

“You are a woman of many talents,” he says with a smile.

She looks up at him as she finishes pushing the needle through the fabric.

“It’s really not a talent. It’s like the most basic of all possible sewing tasks.”

“You can do more?”

She shrugs, eyes fixed on his shirt again.

“I can do hems, fix small tears or holes -- my grandmother taught me. And I’ve been on a tight budget for years so I need to make my clothes last.”

He watches as she pulls the needle through a hole in the button and pushes it through the one opposite it, making a neat little X of thread across the button. It’s easy sometimes to reduce Annie to her most simple – in all her driven, perfectionist, high-strung, optimistic glory – but every so often, it hits him, how much he doesn’t know about her. And not just things like her ability to sew a button or explain what a power play is, though those things are fun and interesting to discover. It’s all the things she’s been through and how she’s learned to cope and how she’s managed to take care of herself and how she is still someone capable of hope.

She lifts a small pair of scissors out of her sewing kit, trims off the excess thread at the back of the button, and holds up the shirt to show off her handy work.

“Ta da,” she says, and there’s a little sarcasm in her tone, a trace of self-deprecation.

He takes it from her, laying it across his lap where he can rub a finger against the new button. He looks up at her and smiles.

“Amazing,” he says softly.

Annie huffs out a laugh.

“You’re easy to impress today.”

He slides back into the shirt and shrugs, not meeting her eyes.

\--

He isn’t really into planning parties or get-togethers – he’s much more comfortable bringing a little life to other people’s shindigs – but he can manage it when a friend really needs it. 

When Duncan drops the tenth reference to his upcoming birthday into their conversation during lunch (“It’s right after your fine nation’s birthday so it gets overlooked on the regular.”), Jeff realizes the guy could use a little revelry in his honor so he sends a few texts and manages to put a little something together. He makes the mistake of letting Duncan choose the venue, though, and they wind up at a bar that’s a little too faux dive-y and overrun with frat boys for Jeff’s tastes.

But it’s not his birthday, so he orders a scotch and tries to suck it up. Annie appears beside him at the bar, and he listens as she asks the bartender for a vodka and cranberry juice. She leans across the bar top a little so the guy can hear her better, and Jeff’s eyes inevitably fall to her ass, where her jeans are stretched pleasantly tight. She catches him, glancing back over her shoulder, but doesn’t call him on it for some reason.

“You hate this place,” she says instead.

“Is it that obvious?” He smirks. “I thought I was doing a pretty good job hiding it.”

She smiles a little, but shakes her head.

“You still did a nice thing, though. Planning this for Duncan. It seems like he’s having a good time.”

They look across the bar toward the dance floor where Duncan and Britta are doing something that might generously be described as dancing. They’re both pretty drunk, barely managing not to trip over their own feet, so they keep falling into one another for support, laughing the entire time.

“Looks like they’re getting cozy,” Jeff says offhandedly, signaling to the bartender for a refill.

Annie takes a sip of her drink, her eyes trained on the dance floor.

“Would that bother you?” she asks, trying just a little too hard for a casual tone.

He stares at her blankly, and it hits him that she must think he’s still carrying some kind of torch for Britta -- but that doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense considering that he’s been sleeping with her for nearly four months. She can’t honestly believe he’d do that, he thinks -- console himself with her when he really wanted to Britta.

But Annie is studiously avoiding his eyes, scraping at the floor with the toe of her sandal as if to distract herself.

“I guess it’s always a little weird when a friend hooks up with someone you used to sleep with,” he says carefully. “But I don’t really care beyond that.” He shrugs. “And I can’t begrudge Duncan any action he might get considering how many Match.com horror stories I’ve heard from him in recent months.”

Annie nods absently, but she’s biting her lip as she goes back to looking at Duncan and Britta.

“Britta’s going to hate me,” she whispers.

“No,” Jeff says automatically. “She’s not…”

But he trails off because he doesn’t really know how Britta is going to feel about all of this. He thinks there’s a pretty good chance she won’t hate Annie, but she will very likely hate him – for many and varied reasons, some of which are bullshit and others that are more valid that he’d like to admit. 

“Annie,” he tries again, in as soft and soothing a voice as he can manage. “We can explain this, okay? We’ll find a way to make it—“

He’s cut off when some drunken guy in a backwards baseball cap bumps into her hard enough that some of her drink splashes on her hand and the floor beneath her. She gasps in surprise and Jeff reaches out to steady her, glaring at the douchebag behind her.

“Sorry,” the drunk slurs a little distractedly, but when Annie turns and offers him a tight smile to signal that it’s not a big deal, the asshole grins stupidly. “Oh, man, I am so sorry, pretty lady. Let me buy ya another one. I can—“

“We’re in the middle of a conversation here,” Jeff tells him. “So…”

By some miracle, the guy seems to take a hint and staggers over to the other side of the bar. Annie wipes at her hand with a cocktail napkin, but her eyes still hold a wet glimmer of guilt. Jeff reaches out to cup her shoulder, squeezing tenderly.

“I’ll make it right, Annie,” he says. “Okay?”

She tilts her head, looking up at him sadly.

“You really think that’s possible?”

“I think there’s—“

“Here you go, baby.” The drunken overgrown frat boy is back, thrusting a fresh drink at Annie. “I always settle my debts. Especially when I’m indebted to someone as pretty as you.”

Annie eyes the glass, like she doesn’t quite know what to do.

“That’s really not necessary. I’m not—“

“You come here often? I mean, you obviously don’t because I would totally remember seeing you. It’s –“

“Look, buddy,” Jeff says, stepping between the guy and Annie. He’s got at least five inches and forty pounds on this asshole and he straightens up as much as possible to emphasize his size. “She’s with me, all right? So take your drink and just move along.”

The guy blinks, looking more than a little confused. He scowls like he’s thinking about taking a swing but must reconsider when he tilts his head back to look Jeff in the eye because he turns and stumbles away. He’s muttering a little under his breath in some pretty colorful language that insults most of Jeff’s ancestral line, but Jeff just decides to ignore him because he’s really not interested in getting into a bar fight, even over Annie. He looks over at her, and she’s staring into the bottom of her glass like there’s something particularly interesting inside. He tilts his own drink a little, watching the liquid surge toward the edge.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a moment. “I don’t know why I …”

She stares up at him, her expression strangely unreadable.

“Acted like a caveman?”

He grimaces.

“Was it really that bad?”

“I just…” She shakes her head. “I could have handled it. You don’t always have to protect me, Jeff.”

“I know that,” he tells her, swallowing thickly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want. A lot of the time.”

She sighs, a low, aching sound that cuts through him even in the noisy bar. But she manages a tight smile somehow and nudges his side with her elbow.

“Buy me another drink?”

He nods, forcing his own grin. When he signals to the bartender for another round, Annie rubs a hand over his back and he tries to stay very still.

\--

He is privately and embarrassingly obsessed with the curve of her hip.

The right one is his favorite, but they’re both pretty spectacular – and he loves the way she twists against the sheets and fists her hands in his hair when he traces his mouth, tongue and fingers over the ripe arc, like she can’t possibly stand how good it feels. 

It’s kind of ridiculous because he’s always been something of a traditionalist whose favorite parts of a woman are tits and ass – and Annie’s are certainly worthy of a sonnet or song or the centerfold in a really classy, tasteful magazine – but her hips seem to fit perfectly in his hand and the skin is always so warm and soft and she’s just a little bit ticklish there too, so it’s hard not to think of them as a serious sweet spot.

He smiles against the left one as she kicks her feet on the mattress and laughs breathlessly.

“You do that on purpose,” she cries. “Don’t you?”

He lifts his head, offering up his most charming smile.

“Who me?”

“You can’t pull off the whole innocent thing,” she says, tugging at his shoulder so he slides up over her. “Not even a little bit. And especially not in bed.”

He grins down at her.

“Do you want me to be more innocent? Because I’ll try anything once.”

She traces her fingers down his back, smiling softly.

“I didn’t say that. You’re fine just the way you are.”

“Fine?” he scoffs. “So you don’t have any fantasies? Things you’d like to try out?”

She smacks at his shoulder and laughs a little.

“Jeff!”

“What? It’s a valid question. I mean, I can’t help you out if you don’t let me know what you want.”

She blushes all the way down to the tops of her breasts and her eyes dart away from him as she starts to play with the edge of the sheet beside her.

“I don’t need you to help me out,” she insists. “Because I have zero complaints.”

“Well, obviously,” he declares, and this time, she kicks at the back of his shin in protest. “But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be even better.” He presses a lingering kiss to the side of her neck. “Come on. You can tell me...”

She shakes her head against the pillow.

“I don’t really…”

“Annie…”

“I don’t know,” she practically whispers. “I guess there are a few things that kind of… interest me. Like maybe having sex in public. Well, not *public* public but somewhere that someone might walk in…”

He lifts his head from the curve of her shoulder, grinning.

“The lock on my office door is busted. Have I mentioned that?”

She smiles, though she shrugs a little.

“And maybe, you know, a little bondage…”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Okay. Sure. Are we talking about you getting tied up or me?”

She’s still blushing faintly, but the longer the conversation goes, the more comfortable she seems to get with it -- she smirks now, her fingers tickling along his ribs.

“I was thinking me, but now that you mention it, the idea of tying you up definitely has its appeal.”

He nods stupidly, leaning down to kiss her again. She raises her knees and squeezes his hips, keeping him locked in place.

“What about you?” she asks.

“I think the idea of you tying me up is pretty appealing too.”

She giggles as he nuzzles against her cheek, his stubble sparking against her soft skin.

“No, dummy. What are you fantasies?”

He tenses a little, but covers by rolling his hips against hers in the hopes that she won’t notice.

But of course, she does – because Annie Edison doesn’t miss much.

“Oh, I get it,” she says. “You’re such a sex god that there’s no fantasy you haven’t already lived out. Right?”

He huffs out a quiet laugh, moving his lips along throat in another effort to distract her.

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“Come on, Jeff. You made me tell you. Fair’s fair.”

He licks along the curve of her breast and smiles gamely.

“I think the time for talking’s over.”

Annie shifts her hands to his hair, scratching over his scalp in a way that somehow seems to rouse every nerve ending in his body.

“Do you want me to guess?” she prods. “I could try. I’m just not sure—“

“Don’t take this wrong way,” he says, tickling her along the curve of her hip again so she squirms and gasps breathlessly. “But I kind of just want you to shut up right now.”

 “Let me think… “ When he looks up, her head is cocked thoughtfully against the pillow like she’s puzzling out some sort of academic dilemma. Her fingers slide over his shoulders, massaging gently. “Oooh! The school girl thing! That’s one of them, right?”

He grimaces as soon as the words leave her mouth and drops his face to her chest.

“What?” she asks, sounding confused. “You said once that—“

“Can we not talk about this? Please.”

“What’s the big deal?” She smacks his shoulder to get him to look up. “Lots of men like that. The whole plaid skirt, pigtails, little, white cotton—“

“Stop,” he groans. “I’m serious. Just stop.”

“Jeff,” she laughs. “Why are you being so squeamish? You’re usually so…” She pauses, her brow furrowing. “Oh. Unless you’re still all hung up on the whole age thing…”

He sighs in frustration because they’re naked and having a conversation about this is the absolute last thing he wants to do. But he knows Annie – she won’t let it go until she’s satisfied that they’ve settled the matter.

“I’m not hung up on it,” he insists. “But you have to admit… it makes some things a little weird.”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“No. I don’t. I think that’s all in your head.”

“Oh, so you just go around telling people I’m your uncle because ….”

He gestures aimlessly with his hand.

“That only happened once or twice,” she huffs. “God, why couldn’t Shirley just keep her mouth shut?” She sighs, frowning deeply, and maybe she sees their entire evening taking an uncomfortable detour now too. “And that wasn’t so much about your age, Jeff. It was about … all the weirdness between us. I had to explain it away somehow.”

“And telling the truth, that we’re friends, wouldn’t have done the job?”

“Jeff, come on,” she says slowly, like she’s talking to a small, stupid child. “If you see a girl who’s got some weird, close relationship with a good-looking guy and she tells you, ‘Oh, he’s just a friend,’ what are you going to think?”

He cocks his head, pursing his lips petulantly – because he knows where she’s going with this.

“That she’s sleeping with him,” he mutters.

“Exactly! See!”

She may be onto something, but it doesn’t exactly make him feel any better. She smiles up at him almost triumphantly, like she’s officially won the debate.

“Okay,” he concedes. “But we haven’t told anyone about this. Why’s that?”

“Not because of the age thing.”

“No?”

She shakes her head again.

“And just so you know,” she says. “You don’t remind me of my uncle or my father… or my brother. Though he’s younger than me so that wouldn’t really make any sense anyway...”

“I appreciate that, but I’d prefer if we stopped talking about this all together if you don’t mind.”

She must sense his seriousness because she falls silent. Her fingertips still trace slow circles on between his shoulder blades, but despite the fact that they’re still tangled together, the mood seems pretty well shot at this point. He exhales slowly, and when he looks up, she’s watching him with an expression that’s almost unbearably tender.

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned about your age,” she says softly. “You look better than every other guy I’ve been with… and they were all younger than you.”

He laughs without thinking, feeling more than a little self-conscious.  He’s pretty sure that she means what she’s saying, that she’s not just telling him what he wants to hear to feel better, but it’s a little too close to pity for his liking.

“This may blow your mind,” he tells her. “But all of my concerns aren’t of the superficial variety. Shocking, I know.”

She squints up at him.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I’m forty-one years old and I’m teaching at fucking Greendale Community College. That’s not exactly where I saw myself at this point in my life.”

“Didn’t I tell you once before to stop thinking of your life as something you’ve settled for?”

“That’s easy for you to say, Annie,” he says. “You’re doing what you want to be doing. And I am pretty much settling because I couldn’t cut it as an honest lawyer.”

“Just answer one question for me, okay?” She waits for him to shrug before she continues. “If you stop comparing your current situation to your former life with all its meaningless, superficial crap like a corner office and three thousand dollar suits, are you happy now?”

He wonders just how honest he should be – because he has a feeling that neither of them is ready for the full, unvarnished truth.

“I’m not *unhappy*,” he hedges. “And that probably has more to do with the fact that you’re naked and I’m lying on top of you than anything else.”

She rolls her eyes and pokes him in the side. He can’t help smirking.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Glib.”

Still, she doesn’t protest when he slides down her body, flashing his teeth against her side and over the curve of her hip again. She squirms against the mattress and gasps, pressing her nails into the back of his neck.

“Now wasn’t there talk about someone getting tied up?”

\--

When Annie texts on a Friday night to tell him she’s stuck working an overnight shift at the lab so there’s no chance of her stopping by, he’s annoyed – not at her, really, but at fate for conspiring to keep them apart for nearly an entire week.

So he’s all set to spend the evening pouting alone when Troy texts to say that he and Britta are going to the movies and does Jeff want to come along?

In all honesty, Jeff isn’t that interested in seeing “Ant-Man,” but he’s even less interested in moping around his apartment like a loser so he decides to go. And really, it’s not a terrible way to spend the night because he’s with friends but it’s two hours where he doesn’t actually have to talk to them. When they leave the theater, though, Troy insists they go to some diner that has coconut cream pie that he loves. Jeff just orders a Diet Coke, despite the fact that he’s seriously tempted by the potato skins at the table next to theirs.

“I know I told you before the movie,” Troy says, between bites of his pie. “But I just wanna make sure again you guys get it – Abed cannot know I saw ‘Ant-Man’ without him. Ever. I mean, when he told me he couldn’t go tonight, I promised we’d go tomorrow – and I totally will – but I couldn’t wait that long to see it! And he’ll totally freak out if he knows I saw it without him. Freak. Out. So both of you have to swear you won’t tell him. Ever. You have to take this to your graves. Like what really happened to that plate Shirley used to bring in the snickerdoodles and used to belong to her grandma…”

 Jeff and Britta murmur their agreement, but Jeff’s willing to bet that Troy caves within the first few minutes of sitting in the theater with Abed tomorrow so the point is probably moot anyway.

“I just can’t believe he’d miss the premiere of a movie like this,” Britta muses. “It’s so unlike him.”

Troy shrugs.

“Well, Rachel’s a bridesmaid in her cousin’s wedding so it’s not like he could really get out of it.”

“But that’s what’s so amazing,” Britta says. “That he’s actually putting aside his own desires to do this for Rachel. That’s serious growth right there.”

“I guess it is kinda crazy,” Troy agrees. “But he really likes her…” He shakes his head, looking pensive. “And you know, the other day I was thinking that me being gone for that year was probably a really good thing for Abed. I mean, maybe he wouldn’t have been so open to this thing with Rachel if I’d been around. We distract each other a lot.”

Britta practically beams, nodding thoughtfully, and Jeff rolls his eyes.

“That’s a very mature, insightful thing to say, Troy.”

“You know, when you say it all condescending like that, Britta,” Jeff says. “The compliment kind of loses its luster.”

She glares across the table and proceeds to lob a packet of a sugar his way -- but he impresses even himself by catching it before it can whack him in the face.

“Speaking of crazy stuff,” Troy says, wiping his mouth. “Abed told me you two almost got married. Be straight with me -- were you guys really drunk or stoned or something?”

Britta cocks her head, smirking haughtily.

“I’d have to be, right?” she says. “To agree to marry this jackass.”

Jeff lifts a half-hearted shoulder.

“I was just hoping to transfer my credit card debt to you and leave you holding the bag.”

She scowls again, but refrains from throwing any condiments at him this time.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Troy says. “You two would probably kill one another before you could even make it down the aisle.”

“Which is exactly why reason prevailed,” Jeff tells him.

“Besides,” Britta says. “It’s not like you could seriously commit to a single person for more than a few minutes at a time. I mean, when was the last time you went on a second date with a woman?”

He shakes his head, trying to come up with an appropriate quip – but he’s saved by his cell phone buzzing in his pocket. When he sees it’s a text from Annie, he has a hard time fighting off a smile.

_Got my work done in record time! Could be at your place in an hour.  You around?_

 “Well, as riveting this conversation is, I’ve got to go,” he says, sliding out of the booth. “Looks like I’ve got a second date to get to.”

He can hear Britta calling after him as he heads for exit, wanting to know where he’s going and who he’s going to see, but he’s busy texting Annie back so he doesn’t pay much attention.

\--

He knows something’s wrong as soon as he opens the door.

Annie practically radiates anger but also a kind of world weariness as she stands on his doorstep and frowns up at him. Her hair is loose and kind of a mess, as if she’s been running her hands through it again and again in frustration. She’s got the strap of her messenger bag in a white-knuckled grip too, so it’s like every muscle in her body is tightly coiled with tension.

“I’ve had the crappiest day you can imagine,” she announces, shuffling past him into the apartment.

“Okay,” he says a little warily.

She flings her bag down on the sofa and collapses beside it.

“It started off with a bang when the electric company called to say they were going to cut off our power because our bill is three months past due,” she sighs. “Because Troy and Abed couldn’t manage to make the damn payments even though Troy has plenty money now. But I guess that’s really my fault because I should’ve known better than to trust them with anything even remotely important. So I had to run down there in person with a check so they didn’t turn off our lights.”

He takes a seat beside her, nodding in sympathy.

“That’s definitely a crappy way to start the day.”

“And then I get an email from my uncle,” she says. “Who I haven’t seen or spoken to in like seven years, mind you, telling me that he’s worried about my dad and his drinking and maybe I could talk to him since I know all about addiction.” She huffs out a small, bitter laugh. “My father can barely manage to call me on my birthday but I’m supposed to help him with a serious problem like this. It’s ridiculous…”

“It is,” Jeff agrees.

“But now that I know, it’s not like I can just ignore it,” Annie continues, as if she hasn’t heard him. “Because I’m already worried about him now. I’ve started imagining all these scenarios where he comes down with cirrhosis or cardiomyopathy or liver cancer. Or even worse, he drives drunk and wraps his car around a tree.”

Jeff shifts a little closer to her and throws an arm around her shoulder, patting a little awkwardly, because he should do something to show he’s trying to be at least a little bit supportive.

“You don’t really know how bad it is, though,” he points out. “Maybe your uncle’s overreacting or …”

She nods slowly.

“I know. But it means I’m going to have to talk to him. And I really don’t want to. At least not like this.”

She sighs again and shifts forward, so she can kick her shoes off under the coffee table. His hand falls away from her shoulder as she turns and tucks her feet up under her, but he finds himself reaching out to run it over the back of her head, smoothing the hair back into place.

“And then I go to work tonight,” she says. “And my supervisor is just such a jerk. I mean, I know I’ve only been there six months and there’s stuff that I still have to learn, which means sometimes he’s going to have to correct me. But he does it in the most condescending way possible, like he’s explaining the finer points of the alphabet to a kindergartner.” She shakes her head in disgust. “And it’s all because he’s a misogynistic ass. He doesn’t act that way with Kevin, the guy who started as an intern with me. The two of them are like old buddies or something. I think it’s all because the head of the lab is a woman and he has to report to her and it just kills him that she’s so much smarter and more successful than he is.” She pauses, looking at Jeff intently. “What is it about a woman in a position of power that’s so threatening to men?

He shrugs, shooting her a smart grin.

“You’re asking the wrong guy. Because women in power turn me on.”

She tips her head back and groans.

“I’m serious, Jeff.” She almost smiles, though. “Besides, you’re turned on by a stiff breeze.”

He laughs, because it’s hard to argue with her assertion. Annie lets out a little sigh and leans into him, her head resting on his chest. He curls into her too, laying his cheek against the top of her hair.

“That definitely sounds like a shitty day,” he whispers.

He can feel her nod against his body, and then the slow, even breaths that she takes to calm herself down, and he tries to match his breathing to hers. His eyes slip shut of their own accord, and his mind seems to get really clear – until a minute later, when Annie suddenly springs up, separating from him and leaning back against the other end of the sofa.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out.

He stares at her blankly.

“For what?”

“For coming here and dumping all of this on you. I’m sure you had a long day too and you don’t need me—“

“Annie,” he says, with a smile. “It’s fine. Really. In fact, I know just the thing to make you feel better.”

She raises a brow pointedly, clearly expecting him to make a move, but he gets up and heads for his liquor cabinet. He starts mixing up a drink and he can feel her watching him the entire time just like that night before Troy’s party.

“You’re making me a drink?” she finally asks when he’s headed to kitchen for ice to add to the cocktail shaker.

“Yeah. I realize it may be a little insensitive, given the news about your father, but I hope you’re not offended and you’ll take it in the spirit it’s intended.”

She looks at him for a long moment, her eyes dark.

“I’m not offended,” she tells him.

When he hands her the glass, she smiles up at him and he feels his face go warm as she sips from it.

“It’s really good,” she says. “An amaretto sour, right? Was this one of your specialties in your bartending days?”

“I actually learned to make this one before I bartended.”

She cocks her head, looking at him expectantly.

“It’s my mom’s favorite,” he explains. “She’s not a big drinker, but when I was a kid and she had a really rough day at work, she’d want a little something to take the edge off and this was always her go-to. So when I was like 12 or 13, I taught myself how to make it so I could do it for her.”

Annie takes a deep breath and her eyes look suspiciously bright.

“That’s really sweet.”

He shrugs and pours himself a little scotch for something to do.

“Whiskey sours were my grandma’s favorite,” Annie says. “She’s always order them when we went out to dinner … and when my parents weren’t looking, she’d let me have a little sip. When I went into rehab, she thought it was her fault. Like letting me have a tiny bit of alcohol when I was ten somehow made me become addicted to Adderall or something.”

He sits beside her again and props his feet up on the coffee table. They somehow wind up sliding toward one another, their arms pressed warmly against one another.

“It’s funny how when you’re a kid, you think your family’s the only one that’s fucked up,” he says. “And then you grow up and realize every family is fucked up. It’s just a matter of degrees.”

She nods thoughtfully, stretching out so her feet rest beside his on the coffee table. He watches her curl her toes, painted a dark coral color, against the dark wood. On a whim, he reaches out and wraps his hand around her wrist, his thumb stroking at her pulse point softly.  She smiles at him over the rim of her glass, and they sit in silence, sipping their drinks in his dimly lit apartment.

\--

The summer is more than half over, and he feels like he’s spent most of it at Greendale, teaching a class full of people who aren’t any more interested in wasting their time at school than he is. He realizes this as he sits in his office, grading the most recent batch of exams –he’s probably not the most effective teacher in the world, but the fact that half the class is failing seems to say more about them than it does about Jeff Winger’s teaching skills.

That’s what he tells himself anyway.

When he’s near the bottom of the stack of tests, though, Duncan appears, slumping in his office doorway in a dramatic fashion that instinctively has him rolling his eyes.

“You’re here,” Duncan declares. “I was hoping you would be, but it’s summer and I thought you might get out of here as soon possible.”

“What are you doing here?” Jeff asks. “You’re not teaching a summer session class.”

“I’m heading a psych experiment that’ll be running into the fall semester. But I’ve got Britta and a few other students helping out, so I’ve got lots of free time…” He steps into the office and holds up his hand, brandishing a bottle of scotch. “To get rat arsed and commiserate with my friend.”

He sinks into the chair opposite Jeff’s desk and pulls a plastic cup out from somewhere so he can pour himself some booze. Jeff holds out the ‘World’s Greatest Teacher’ coffee mug that Annie gave him as a joke so he can have a little too – he’s been grading too damn long; he deserves a break.

“Do I get to know what I’m commiserating about?”

“Yet another failed date with a woman I met online,” Duncan sighs. “I’m well aware of my many shortcomings and my self-esteem pretty much exists at a rock bottom baseline but this is starting to rattle even me.” He throws back all of the scotch in his cup. “What am I doing wrong, Jeffrey? What am I doing wrong?”

Jeff leans back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk.

“It’s not like me to champion honesty, but here’s a suggestion – stop lying so much in your profile.”

“I think lying is a bit harsh,” Duncan protests. “I’ve just creatively stretched the truth a little.”

Jeff snickers.

“Your profile pic is so photoshopped, you look like a damn cartoon character.”

“Oh, come on! I just improved the lighting a bit. And gave myself a stronger jawline, made my hair look a little thicker…”

“There’s also a picture of you posing with a Porsche,” Jeff says. “So I bet when you show up in your little toy car, your dates are a little confused. And then there’s all that crap about how you’re into rock climbing and sky diving and you’re a tenured professor at a prestigious educational institution. And you’ve shaved at least a handful of years off your age and added a few inches to your height.”

“Everyone sells themselves a little bit, though. These women have to know what they’re getting into.”

“All I’m saying is that maybe if they didn’t feel quite so misled – or hadn’t had their expectations unrealistically raised – they’d actually stay through an entire date, buddy.”

Duncan snorts, refilling his cup and Jeff’s mug.

“Oh, please. Isn’t that easy for you to say? Looking the way you do...”

“Well, yeah,” Jeff says with a shrug. “I’ve obviously been blessed in that regard. But I think if you’re looking for more than casual sex, which you say you are, looks don’t mean as much.”

Duncan squints in confusion, and he wonders then if he’s said too much. He swirls the scotch around in his glass to keep himself busy.

 “What are you talking about?” Duncan asks. “Why wouldn’t--”

“Well, what’s going on in here? Someone must have misplaced my invitation to boys’ night!”

Jeff and Duncan both look over to the doorway, where the Dean stands, positively beaming. Duncan rolls his eyes, sinking a little further into his chair. Of course, that doesn’t deter the Dean, who pulls the rickety wooden chair from the corner of the room over to Jeff’s desk so he can sit beside Duncan.

“So… what are we dishing about?”

Normally, Jeff would be just as annoyed about the Dean’s appearance as Duncan, but right now, he thinks the Dean is probably a surefire to derail their conversation and bring it back to safer ground.

“We’re just discussing Duncan’s recent failures with Match.com.”

The Dean nods thoughtfully.

“Online relationships are definitely tricky. I’ve been misled a time or two myself… and MTV does that entire show about it.”

“I was just telling Duncan he should stop lying so much. I’m pretty sure it’s the reason most of his dates haven’t worked out.”

Duncan huffs out a laugh, handing the Dean his half full cup of scotch and swigging directly from the bottle instead. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and shrugs.

“And I was explaining to Winger that when you look like him, it’s bloody easy to be honest about what utter crap your life actually is. It’s not so for us mere mortals.”

As if on cue, the Dean gives Jeff a long, lingering appraisal, practically from head and toe, and grins.

“Well, that’s certainly true.”

Duncan jabs a finger in the Dean’s direction, happy to have someone back him up.

“See! Exactly.  But Jeff was trying to claim that his looks don’t help him with women or something. Which is just crazy.”

“That’s not what I was saying,” Jeff sighs. “What I was saying is that my expertise lies in getting women, not making them stay. Of course, my looks attract plenty of people, but if you want them to stick around for more than a night, it takes a little more than winning smile. And don’t ask me what that is because I sure as hell don’t know.”

“Ah-ha,” Duncan declares, waving his finger at Jeff this time. “So you admit that you’re starting to think about something more than a good time yourself?”

Jeff frowns, staring down into his coffee mug -- this is exactly the kind of talk he was hoping to avoid.

“I didn’t say that,” he hedges. “I’m just—“

“You were going to marry Britta,” the Dean points out. “So you were thinking about it then.”

Jeff groans in frustration.

“Why does everyone keep bringing that up? It’s not like we were serious about it…”

The Dean shakes his head dubiously, taking a sip of scotch.

“You seemed pretty serious when you announced it,” he says pointedly. “Though for the record, I really don’t think you two are the best match. You need someone who appreciates you a little more than Britta does, someone who brings out the best in you.”

He offers up a moony, almost pleading smile, and Jeff drops his head back against his chair, feeling very tired.

“I think we’ve dissected Winger’s love life quite enough,” Duncan whines. “This is my booze so it’s supposed to about me. All my pain and suffering.”

Jeff nods.

“Exactly. It’s all about you.”

He doesn’t pay much attention to the rest of the conversation, though. He nurses his scotch and nods every so often, just waiting for them to leave.

\--

Abed’s already told him that Annie is dog sitting for their downstairs neighbor’s Great Dane, so Jeff isn’t surprised when he pulls up in front of their building on Saturday morning and spots her walking a huge tan dog that’s got it all over her in the height and weight department. She’s wearing denim shorts and a Greendale T-shirt, her hair thrown over her shoulder in a messy braid, and he thinks she could probably still pass as a high schooler if she needed to.

“Why does your neighbor have a dog this big in a cramped apartment?” he asks as he gets out of his car and heads toward them.

She spins at the sound of his voice, obviously surprised to see him.

“She rescued him,” Annie says with a shrug. “And he’s really, really sweet.”

As if to prove the point, the dog ambles over to Jeff and nuzzles against his hip, smearing slobber all over his gym shorts.

“The drool is definitely a problem, though,” she admits, eyeing him with sympathy. “He can’t eat or drink or do anything really without dripping all over the place.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bob.”

“Bob?” Jeff laughs. “Really?”

She smiles, patting the dog’s head.

“What’s wrong with that? It’s a nice, simple, traditional name. Like Annie. Or Jeff.”

“Yeah, but it’s a weird name for a dog.”

She lifts her shoulders a little, though she doesn’t disagree. He reaches out to scratch the dog behind an ear, and they’re both silent for a moment, like they’re unsure what to say.

But Annie eventually gets right to the point.

“What are you doing here, Jeff?” she asks, not unkindly.

“I was on my way to the gym. And I remembered your New Year’s resolution about taking a kickboxing class. As far as I know, you haven’t done it yet…”

She shakes her head sheepishly.

“I’ve been really busy.”

“Well, they offer them at my gym and I know you’re not working today so I thought maybe you’d want to come along. Use my guest pass to take the class.”

She scrapes the edge of her flip flop against a crack in the sidewalk, avoiding his eyes. He’s not sure what the big deal is – he’s asking her to go work out, not run off and elope – and jams his hands in his pockets so he won’t look as flustered as he feels.  

“Oh, um... That sounds… yeah. Thanks.” She jingles the dog’s leash. “But I’ve got to get him back inside first.”

By the time they make it to the gym, after dropping Bob back off at home and giving Annie time to change, it turns out they’ve missed the kick boxing class and the next one isn’t for a few hours. She doesn’t seem particularly disappointed, though.

“I’ll just do your workout with you,” she says.

He looks at her, in her flowered tank top and little purple shorts, and laughs.

“Annie, please. I can bench-press two and half times my own body weight. And you’re probably doing bicep curls with five pound dumb bells. It’d kill you.”

She frowns, narrowing her eyes in annoyance.

“Well, maybe I’ll have to modify some stuff, but I can keep up. And I can spot you or whatever.”

He chuckles again.

“What do you weigh? A hundred pounds? I’d be better off using you to do shoulder presses than counting on you to spot me.”

She steps into him in what is clearly meant to be an intimidating gesture, but he’s too busy admiring the view of her cleavage that it affords him to feel too threatened.

“Try me,” she practically growls.

It’s probably not a good thing to feel as turned on at the start of a workout as he does, but he can only grin and bear it. 

And sure enough, as they go through the paces, Annie keeps up pretty well. She can’t manage the same weight as him, obviously, but she meets him rep for rep – and when it comes to the 45 minutes of cardio that he does to finish off his workout, she may not be able to run as fast on the treadmill but she does outdo him by raising her incline to 8 when he can only make it to a measly 5 without his calves throbbing.

She’s feeling so pleased of herself that she doesn’t even roll her eyes when he asks her to put a towel down before she gets in the car so she doesn’t sweat all over his leather interior.

“Admit it,” she says, fastening her seatbelt. “I kicked major butt… and you’re impressed. Seriously impressed.”

He grins as he starts the car.

“I’m kind of impressed.”

“I can’t wait to tell Britta,” she says. “Because here you were, being a typical guy, thinking I’m some frail, little flower that can’t keep up. She’s going to love this.”

She takes out her cellphone and starts typing out a text. When they hit a stoplight, he looks over at her, smiling a little smugly, and he feels a prickly heat start to spread just under his skin. He feels Annie lean across the car then, and there’s a flash in his face, and when he looks over, she’s obviously just snapped a photo of the two of them, in all their disheveled, post-workout glory.

“So Britta can see you’re sweating more,” she says haughtily.

He smiles tightly, watching as she goes back to texting.

 “Annie,” he says, before he even realizes he’s going to do it. “We’re sleeping together.”

She looks up in surprise and nearly drops her phone as a nervous laugh stutters out of her.

“Jeff,” she practically gasps. “I’m well aware.”

Her gaze drops to her lap, where her phone now lies uselessly.

“Are you?” he asks. “Because sometimes it seems like if we’re not actually getting down and dirty, you want to act like it’s not happening.”

She shakes her head, but she’s still avoiding his eyes.

“I don’t do that.”

She spits the words out like she thinks he’s an idiot for even thinking that way, let alone accusing her of it to her face. So he shrugs, not really willing to push the issue right now, and focuses on the road again. She’s quiet the rest of the ride too, like the mood has permanently shifted.

So when he finds a spot right in front of her building again, he leaves the engine running. Annie starts to open the door, but hesitates when she sees he’s still got his seatbelt on.

“You’re not coming up?”

He laughs a little, because he honestly has no idea what’s going on here and he shouldn’t care -- he’s never cared about defining things before, but he kind of thinks that he does now and he’s pretty pissed that he cares.

It is a fucking mess.

But he’s not about to tell her that.

“I didn’t know you wanted me to,” is what he says instead.

She smiles softly, tucking the hair that’s come loose from her braid behind her ear.

“Abed and Troy went to some swap meet in Fort Collins, so they won’t be back until late. I thought you might want to shower. You know, not drive home all sweaty.”

It’s ridiculous -- because his place is less than ten minutes away and he’s already driven here drenched with sweat so what difference would a few more minutes make? -- but he finds himself nodding, killing the engine and unfastening his seat belt.

“Yeah, okay. Sounds like a good idea.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, he’s pressed against the cracked tiles of Annie’s shower, with warm water streaming over him as she traces her way across his chest with her tongue, and he tells himself that this is all that matters, that this is what he was hoping for when he drove over here this morning.

It mostly feels like the truth.

\--


	7. Chapter 7

\--

Annie likes to talk during sex.

Usually, it has to do with the act itself – encouragement when he does something right (“Oh yeah, just like that…”) or directions on how to make it better (“A little more to the left… oh, and faster!”). He hasn’t gotten her to talk dirty just yet, but she definitely isn’t shy about letting him know what she does and doesn’t like.

And he doesn’t mind that – there’s no harm in a little feedback.

Sometimes, though, it’s just random stuff, junk thoughts that have probably been kicking around her head for days, like how she hates that sweater of his with the elbow patches or how she’s switched to a new body wash that’s supposed to smell like a margarita.

He doesn’t mind that either – in fact, he takes it as compliment that she’s relaxed enough to babble on about all manner of unimportant and nonsensical things.

So he’s not entirely surprised when he’s just started moving inside her and she stops biting at his ear lobe to breathlessly tell him, “Abed thinks we should open a detective agency.”

His brain is already starting to get fuzzy around the edges, so it takes him a minute to process this tidbit.

“You and Abed?”

She shakes her head against the pillow, raising her knees so they’re squeezing him right around the rib cage.

“No. You and me.”

He can’t help laughing a little, and it must do something for Annie because she moans, her nails biting into his shoulders.

“Why would we open a detective agency?”

“It’s Abed ... and he’s been watching ‘Moonlighting’ recently so…”

Jeff nods a little incoherently, shifting his weight forward and twisting his fingers in the ends of her hair.

“Oh,” she gasps. “Do that again! Just like that.”

He rotates his hips again, pushes inside her at the same angle, and she throws her head back against the pillow, arching her back so he can feel her breasts pressed against his chest.

“Most people think Moonlighting was ruined once Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd slept together,” he points out, stilling his hips. “If that’s true, we’ve already jumped the shark.”

Annie opens her eyes, smirking up at him prettily.

“It’s not the same. We’d be sleeping together first… so if we started a detective agency, it would probably be fine.”

“Well, then I guess we should keep it in mind,” he says with a grin. “Who knows how long I’ll be able to last teaching at Greendale?”

It’s Annie’s turn to laugh, and he feels the vibrations all the way from his dick to his fingers and toes. He drops his face against her shoulder, breathing heavily.

They’re both too distracted after that to talk anymore.

\--

Dining in the Greendale cafeteria isn’t exactly a first-rate culinary experience, but it’s hard to screw up a salad, even if a few of the greens look a little wilted around the edges, so Jeff just wants to enjoy the damn thing as much as circumstances allow.

But that’s nearly impossible with Duncan sitting across from him, pleading for assistance with his latest dating dilemma. Because now he’s finally made through not just one but two dates with the same woman and, by some miracle, she’s actually interested in a third – provided she can bring her lovelorn friend along so Duncan can fix her up with some eligible bachelor he knows.

Of course, Jeff’s having none of it, and Duncan is getting desperate.

“So the one time I actually manage to find a little happiness through all this online dating madness, you won’t provide a tiny bit of help to see it through? It’s one bloody night, Jeff. I’m not asking you to marry the woman.”

“I don’t get it,” Jeff says. “If your soul mate found you online and is so enthused, why doesn’t she just tell her friend to try Match.com too? Why does she need you to pimp out your friends?

“I think Stephanie’s friend is a little shy and isn’t exactly sold on the whole online dating experience. The fact that I could vouch for you makes her feel a little more comfortable. Now I’ve never met her friend, or even seen a photo of her actually, but Stephanie says she’s just lovely.”

“I don’t care how lovely she is.”

“And she’s an accountant so maybe she could help you figure out a few loopholes, get you a big refund this year…”

Jeff sighs in frustration – he’s already in a dark mood because there’s still a week left in the summer course he’s teaching and he’s really starting to think he can’t make it another day. He needs a fucking vacation, and he’s not really going to get one because there are only two weeks between the end of summer session and the start of the fall semester.

“I can’t,” he tells Duncan, and it’s almost as if fate intervenes, because right at that moment, he spots Annie across the cafeteria, standing with Britta at the cashier stand. “I’m busy tonight.”

 “Oh, really?” Duncan says skeptically. “Busy with what?”

“I promised Annie I’d help her with something,” he lies. “And you know how Annie is -- I can’t get out of it.”

“Oh, bullocks! You’re Jeff Winger. You can talk your way out of anything.”

He glances back toward the cashier stand, and Annie and Britta have obviously seen them because they’re headed in the direction of the table with what seems like alarming speed.

“Can we finish this later?” Jeff pleads. “I really don’t want to get into a big thing.”

Duncan glances over his shoulder, apparently noticing Jeff’s divided attention.

“Is this about Britta?” he asks, leaning in to lower his voice. “I thought you two had made peace with the whole marriage thing.”

“It’s not about her. I just don’t want to—“

“What are you two talking about so seriously?” Britta asks, dropping down beside Duncan.

Annie slides in beside Jeff, seeming vaguely uncomfortable. She keeps a safe distance between them on the bench and fiddles with the straw in her soda a little frantically.

“Actually, Britta,” Duncan says. “Here’s an opportunity to put some of your psychology education to practical use. I’m trying to convince Jeff to come out and meet a perfectly lovely woman this evening and he is steadfastly refusing. Why do you think that might be?

Britta smirks, obvious interest lighting up her eyes, and Jeff can feel Annie’s eyes on him too, if only for a moment.

 “Perfectly lovely?” Jeff repeats. “You just admitted you’ve never even met her. He just wants me to play wingman so he can get in her friend’s pants. She could be an ax murderer for all he knows.”

Like a switch’s been flipped, Britta turns on Duncan, who has suddenly become a more interesting subject.

“Is that true?” she asks. “Is this all about you getting laid?”

“Well, yes, technically, it is a double date of sorts. But I’m looking for more than just a good time, I assure you.”

He throws a smarmy look Britta’s way that’s probably meant to convey sincerity, and she must buy it, no questions asked, because she turns her gaze back to Jeff, head cocked thoughtfully.

“Jeff, does this have something to do with your father? I bet it’s your fear of abandonment that has you so reluctant to try connecting with another person.”

Jeff drops his head to his chest, groaning tiredly.

“Oh, and Annie,” Duncan says. “You’ll probably be outraged to know that Jeff’s using you as his excuse not to go tonight.”

Annie jerks her head up in alarm, pulling her straw clean out of her cup, and turns wide, panicked eyes on Jeff.

“What?” she half laughs, half stutters. “Why would… I don’t know what… that’s just…”

Jeff nudges her with his elbow, trying to get her to calm down.

“You asked me to help you with that project in your Science and Law class. Remember?”

Their eyes meet and he’s practically pleading with her, if she can translate his fairly blank expression. It takes a long, annoying moment, but she nods vigorously, like it’s suddenly all come back to her.

“Oh, right! I almost forgot we’re doing that tonight. It’s just so out of character to get you to agree to help out with anything when blackmail or bribery isn’t involved.” She smiles at Britta and Duncan, dialing up the charm. “I’m writing a paper about defense lawyers’ use of scientific experts to counter forensic evidence presented by the prosecution. I figure, because Jeff got all manner of scumbags off in his old life, he might know a thing or two about it.”

“Hey, even scumbags deserve an adequate defense,” he says.

“And you can’t push back this to tomorrow or Thursday?” Duncan asks Annie.

She shakes her head apologetically.

“It’s due tomorrow. I have it all written, so I just want Jeff to look it over and give me some feedback tonight. It’s 25 percent of my grade so …”

Duncan sighs woefully, but lifts his shoulders in reluctant acceptance.

“Say, do you think Troy might be interested? I bet he—“

He’s cut off by a loud, tinny chime from his cellphone.

“Bullocks,” he says, reading the message. “We have to get back to the Psych lab, Britta. Two of the participants are apparently brawling.  I knew we shouldn’t have left Garrett in charge…”

“What the hell are you guys doing up there that leads to brawls?” Jeff asks.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Britta says, sliding out of the booth with Duncan hot on her heels.

Once they’re alone, Jeff and Annie sit beside one another in silence. He taps his water bottle against the table, while she pushes the peppers around in her pasta salad with a plastic fork. He doesn’t exactly know why this choking tension has cropped up, but he feels it hanging over the booth like a fog. He wracks his brain, trying to come up with something, anything, to say -- he wonders if she would be interested to hear that the draft for his fantasy football league is this weekend or not.

“She’s probably not that bad,” Annie says suddenly, and he looks over at her in confusion, honestly having no idea what she’s talking about. “You could always tell Duncan we’re getting together earlier so you can make it tonight.”

“What?”

“I mean, there’s no harm in going to meet her, right? What’s the worst that could happen? You go and she’s awful… so you don’t see her again. But there’s no reason not to at least go and see if –“

“There’s no reason not to go?” he repeats, almost in daze. “How about because of us? Don’t you think that’s a good reason?”

She shakes her head, eyes focused on the peppers in her salad once again.

“Don’t let me stop you from—“

“I don’t get it,” he says.“I assumed there wouldn’t be other people because of … us. Have you been seeing other guys?”

He hopes he doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels, but in an instant, he’s plagued by visions of her spending nights with random guys -- that drippy guy who works with her at the lab or that douche-y blonde from her summer class that’s always watching her across campus or maybe it’s turned out that she had more in common with dumb ass Jesse than previously thought and he’s made a reappearance.

He’s not sure whether he’s going to be sick or put his fist through a wall.

Annie looks up at him and frowns.

“No. Of course not. No.” She shrugs tiredly. “I just didn’t want to assume that… but it would probably be less complicated.  You know, if other people weren’t involved.”

He nods slowly, trying not to react otherwise. Apparently, sleeping together regularly for nearly six months didn’t imply any kind of exclusivity to her – and maybe that’s his fault because they haven’t talked about any of this, because he still hasn’t just come out and told her how he feels, but he definitely isn’t going to do it now, not when he’s feeling so rattled and she seems so unsure.

Somehow, he pulls off a charming grin anyway and taps his water bottle against her wrist.

“You should probably come over tonight,” he says. “You know, so you won’t technically be lying to Duncan.”

Annie smiles.

“Are we going to talk about the law and forensic experts to really sell the story?”

He shrugs.

“I’m down with a little roleplaying if you are.”

“Jeff!” she laughs, swatting at his arm. “Not here.”

She glances around the room to make sure no one’s watching them. But he keeps his eyes on her, ignoring his dry throat.

\--

Annie doesn’t tell him that Troy and Abed are spending Saturday night at the bowling alley for some stupid promotion that involves black light, fog machines, strobe lights, glow-in-the-dark balls and pins, and cheesy 80s music – he finds that out from their ridiculously detailed Twitter feeds – but once he knows they’re gone, he heads to her apartment anyway.

This time, though, he texts just after he parks the car, so she has some advanced warning. 

Upstairs, he only has to knock once before the door swings open -- and given her attire, it’s obvious that she was planning on spending the night in, all alone. She’s wearing a Wonder Woman tank top with blue and purple plaid boxer shorts, her hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, and she’s got some kind of face mask on, which is charcoal gray in the areas where it hasn’t dried and nearly black where it has. She crosses her arms over her chest and tries for a frown but the mask doesn’t allow for much movement in the lower part of her face.

“Am I interrupting?” he asks, with a smirk.

“I wasn’t expecting company if that’s what you mean.” She sighs in exasperation. “I start TA-ing on Monday so my schedule’s going to be packed and I just wanted a little ‘me’ time before everything blows up.”

“And you didn’t call me? I’m the king of ‘me’ time.”

She nearly smiles now, closing the door behind him. He points at her face.

“What is that?”

“This $60 mud mask from Sephora that’s guarantees softer, smoother, brighter skin in just one application,” she tells him. “I’m skeptical, but I guess we’ll see in another ten minutes.”

“I want softer, smoother, brighter skin, too,” he whines.

So he finds himself sitting on the closed toilet in her bathroom a few minutes later as she spreads the thick, gray stuff on his face from a small sample tube. She’s given him a pink terry cloth headband to keep his hair out of the way and he tips his head back as she works, wondering if this might be a better experience than a professional facial. Annie smooths the mask over his skin carefully but with firm pressure so it almost feels like a massage.

“You have really nice skin,” she says offhandedly. “I don’t know what you’re so worried about...”

She swipes a glob of the mask down his nose and he smiles up at her.

They’ve got to wait for their masks to dry so they sit in Troy and Abed’s recliners and start to watch some Belgian TV show about a bank robbery that Abed’s recommended. She brings a pint of ice cream out of the freezer, and he decides it’s okay to indulge because it’s actually Greek frozen yogurt and high on protein.

He digs a spoon in, trying to scoop out one of the peanut butter swirls, when a light flashes in his eyes and he looks up to find Annie taking a picture of him with her phone. She turns the display so he can see it, a close-up of his mud-caked face, fancy pink headwear, and the pint of ice cream.

“The blackmail potential of this photo is sky high,” she laughs.

He shrugs, licking the frozen yogurt from his spoon.

“I hate to disappoint you, but I really don’t care who sees that.”

“Oh, really? So I can make it the wallpaper on my phone and you won’t mind?”

He smirks at her and a piece of the mask flakes off his face and onto his T-shirt.

“I’m pretty sure you have much more interesting photos of me to use than that one.”

She ducks her head a little shyly, and he knows she’s remembering the picture she snapped just a few weeks back when he wasn’t wearing much more than a sheet.

“I bet this wasn’t the kind of night you were expecting when you came over,” she says, taking the ice cream back from him.

“It’s not so bad.”

She smiles at him, cracks spreading through the dried mud on her face.

Later, as she scrubs at his face with a wet washcloth to help get a few lingering pieces of the mask off, he tugs on the edge of her tank top and grins.

“Wonder Woman, huh?”

She shrugs, focused on a stubborn spot on his chin.

“It was a gift from Abed.”

He nods.

“I’ve always said he’s very perceptive.”

There’s color in her cheeks, but he’s not sure if she’s actually blushing or just flushed from rinsing off he mask. She playfully bats at his chest.

“Flattery isn’t necessary,” she says. “You can have the rest of the Glam Glow sample.”

He smiles as she blots at his chin one last time.

“Okay.  You’re all done.”

She surprises him then with a quick, burning kiss to his open mouth, but he fists his hands in her superhero tank top to keep her anchored against him. She laughs against his lips, tasting like peanut butter and bananas.

\--

The fight going on around him is so ridiculous that he doesn’t even bother to pretend that he’s paying attention.

Britta is mad at Troy for something stupid he said and Shirley thinks Abed is being insensitive about something or other and Annie is annoyed with all of them because she’s just trying to start the committee meeting.

Absolutely ridiculous.

He shakes out his paper, skimming over the article about the Broncos’ first win of the season. It’s surprisingly easy to block out all the shrieking until Troy stands and rather dramatically throws his hands up in the air.

“And when are we finally gonna talk about Annie’s secret boyfriend?”

Annie gasps just as the rest of the commotion dies down, and Jeff winces, shielding his face with the newspaper.

“Secret boyfriend?” Britta repeats with obvious interest.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Annie insists primly, folding her arms in front of her on the table.

“She sneaks out late at night and doesn’t come back until like dawn,” Troy says. He juts his thumb toward Abed. “He’s totally seen her. Even has some footage.”

Annie’s mouth drops open in outrage and she glares at Abed across the table. He stares back blankly, as if he isn’t particularly interested in any of this.

“I study a lot,” she defends. “Here. At the library.”

“But you’re finished with your classes,” Britta says, eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“And the library closes at midnight when it’s not midterms or finals week,” Abed points out.

“Well, I meant this summer,” Annie says. “When I was taking that last class. Now if I’m out late at night, it’s because I get called into the lab. We’ve been working a lot of high profile cases lately so we’ve been swamped.”

“You wear a lot of eyeliner and red lipstick if you’re just headed to the lab,” Abed accuses.

Troy nods adamantly.

“And that perfume you usually save for special occasions.”

Jeff looks over at Annie, who is studiously avoiding his gaze. She’s flushed, all the way from hairline to collarbone, and her posture is so rigid that he’s surprised she hasn’t snapped in two yet. He knows he should probably step in and help bail her out, but he’s not really sure what he could possibly say to derail this inquisition without calling unnecessary attention to himself.

“So I want to look and smell nice when I go to work,” Annie says. “That’s not a crime.”

“Is it someone you work with?” Britta asks, tilting her head. “It can’t be your supervisor because you said he was a serious a-hole. Is it that guy Kevin?”

Annie shakes her head.

“No. It’s not any—“

“Is it Jesse again?” Shirley asks. “There’s really no need to hide that from us, sweetie. We all liked Jesse. And I understand better than anyone how on and off again relationships can be.”

“No, it’s not… look, can we please just drop this? We all know how Troy and Abed are so we shouldn’t even—“

“What does that mean?” Troy demands.

“I just don’t understand. Why would you feel the need to hide anything from us?” Shirley asks. Her eyes widen a moment later and she looks at Annie disapprovingly. “You’re not carrying on with a married man, are you?”                                                                                                                                               

 “Oh, my God,” Annie cries. “No, Shirley! I’m not sleeping with a married man. Why would you even think that?”

Britta points a finger across the table.

“Ah-hah! But you are sleeping with someone?”

Annie tips her head back slightly and exhales loudly. She’s barely holding it together and Jeff wonders if she’s just going to blurt out the whole sordid story any second now.

Part of him thinks that might actually be the easiest solution to this mess.

“Annie,” Britta says, trying for a reassuring tone. “As a group, we do sometimes have a tendency to overreact and get a little judge-y about each other’s—“

“You don’t say?” Jeff drawls, hoping no one’s noticed just how much he’s stayed out of the fray on this one.

Britta glares at him for a moment before turning back to Annie.

“But we all promise to be supportive about your new boyfriend. Right, guys?”

Everyone at the table nods, though some are a little reluctant. But Annie still throws her hands up, apparently having hit her limit.

“He’s not my boyfriend!” she insists. “He’s just a guy I hang out with. It’s really not a big deal, so there’s no need to tell the world about it.”

Jeff drops his gaze to the table, clenching his jaw a little.

“So you’re giving it up to this boy but you’re not even dating?” Shirley asks, sounding horrified. “Sweet Jesus, pray for her soul.”  

“That sounds suspiciously like judgment,” Annie sighs.

“Shirley didn’t mean it like that,” Britta says. “Right, Shirley?”

It takes a moment, but eventually Shirley nods.

“Yes, sweetie. I’m sorry. I was just a little shocked, that’s all. It’s just not what I’d expect from you.”

Annie narrows her eyes in annoyance, but manages a half-hearted shrug.

“It’s fine,” she says. “Can we just stop talking about this now? Please.”

There’s some grumbling around the table, but after a minute or so, they all settle down. Annie risks a quick glance at him, and he offers up his most encouraging smile, even if his heart isn’t quite in it. The meeting starts then, so the topic is officially tabled.

Until a half hour later, when he follows after Annie into the library after the group has broken up.

“Can we talk?” he asks when he catches up to her. “About what happened earlier?”

She nods, pulling him into the stacks where they can have a modicum of privacy.

“I think it’s okay,” she says. “I mean, I don’t think anyone suspects anything so we dodged a major bullet.”

He nods.

“Yeah, yeah. I think… we’re fine. But what you said… maybe we should clarify things.”

She wrinkles her brow.

“Clarify what?”

“What’s going on here,” he says. “What we are to each other.”

They probably needed to have this conversation a few weeks back when she apparently didn’t realize that they were exclusive, but it’s surprisingly difficult to talk to her about this stuff. She looks up at him now, with those wide blue eyes all liquid-y and soft, and he wills himself to just say the words, the words that would settle things once and for all, but she beats him to the punch.

“Jeff, it’s really not necessary. I know where we stand,” she assures him. “And it’s fine. It’s good.” She lifts her shoulders and bounces on her toes for a moment as if to show just how good it all is. “We’re good.”

He nods again, because he’s not sure what else to do in the face of her cheerful smile and peppy, little attitude.

“Right. Okay. Good.”

She smiles and nods herself.

“I should go … or I’ll be late for work. See you later.”

She disappears back into the library, and their friends are long gone, but he still waits a couple of minutes in the stacks before following after her.

\--

He spots her across the quad, sitting on a bench with her laptop resting on her knees.

She’s not taking any classes this semester, so Annie’s usually only on campus three days a week – unless there’s committee business that absolutely requires her attention. He’s managed to work out his teaching schedule so he only has to show up four days a week – he’s got his Fridays off, so he’s got three day weekends all the time, making it a pretty glorious time to be alive – which means there’s only one day where he has zero chance of running into her at some point during the day. That’s tolerable, but he can’t help thinking about next semester when she’ll be working full-time at the lab and isn’t TA-ing for Crangel, when he won’t be running into her at all.

It’s not like she’ll disappear completely – Annie’s way too invested in Greendale to walk away completely, so he imagines she’ll still put in some on the committee. But she’ll have real world responsibilities and pressures. She won’t have much time for the ridiculous nonsense that masquerades as crises at Greendale; she won’t be able to waste entire days in the name of some principle or another; and she definitely won’t have enough space in schedule to goof off with him whenever the mood strikes.

It’s a pretty grim future, he realizes.

As if he didn’t already have enough reason to feel stupidly desperate these days.

He strolls across the quad and drops down onto the bench beside her as casually as he can manage. She closes the laptop and smiles, so he knows he has her undivided attention.

“You busy tonight?”

She glances around, presumably to see if anyone’s listening.

“Um… I don’t think so. Why?” She tilts her head, and her smile takes on a sultry, flirty look. “You remembering something?”

“Actually, I need help with something else,” he says. “I’m slowly coming to accept that I may be teaching for at least a little while longer – and I’m not thinking of it as settling, I swear – so I think it’s finally time I admit you’re right and I need to upgrade my computer.”

Annie’s eyes practically light up and she clutches at his forearm so tightly he thinks he feels her nail digging into his skin through his shirt.

“That’s such a good idea! There’s software you can use to keep track of grades and a program that can detect plagiarism and another one that creates online tests that are automatically graded. And probably a bunch of others that’ll make your life so much easier.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, with a smile. “I think I remember you telling me that a time… or ten.”

She swats at his arm, but she’s grinning pretty big.

“So what do you need my help with?”

“Well, I figure you probably have a subscription to Consumer Reports and already know exactly which laptops I should consider,” he tells her. “So would you mind coming with me to Best Buy and helping me pick one out? If I go by myself, we both know what’ll happen – I’ll just wind up with the most expensive one, even if it’s not what I really need.”

She nods, barely holding in her laugh.

“And after we’re done,” he continues. “I’ll buy you a drink or dinner as a thank you.”

In less than a second, her expression changes – gone is the happy, eager little smile, and in its place is a hesitant frown that puts anxious furrows in her forehead. She looks down at her lap, smoothing a hand over her computer.

“Oh, well, the thing is… I forgot I have to do some outlining for Crangel’s class. I have a section meeting tomorrow and I need to be prepared so…”

He’s confused and maybe a little hurt by her sudden reluctance, but he conjures up his most charming smile somehow.

“Come on, Annie. I’d consider it a personal favor. And I’ll even let you set up the laptop afterward. With whatever crap you think I need.”

She makes a sound that’s almost a laugh and smiles reluctantly.

“Okay,” she says. “Fine. But I need to get home early. So I can prep for tomorrow.”

When they get to Best Buy, he watches her grill the sales associate like a cop trying to get a suspect to crack. She already knows the answers to all of the questions she’s asking, so if the sales guy doesn’t shoot straight, she doesn’t hesitate to call him on it. Jeff’s got to admit that it makes shopping for a computer a whole lot more amusing than he suspects it usually is.

And when he walks out with a MacBook Pro that costs nearly as much as he makes in an entire month at Greendale, he probably isn’t as annoyed as he should be either.

Afterward, they go to a restaurant that Annie knows has free Wi-Fi so she can download all the software she deems essential onto the laptop. But she thinks dinner will take too long so they sit in the bar area and split a barbecue chicken flatbread. He knew that allowing her to set up the computer would hook her – she seems ridiculously happy to do it, excited about it in a way that he’s not sure he’s ever been about anything.

“So what do you have to outline? For Crangel’s class?”

She looks up from the computer and shrugs.

“We’re doing a case study on Jack the Ripper,” she says. “Which probably seems funny because forensics as we know it didn’t really exist back then and he was never caught. But that’s the point – to analyze the case and see how modern forensics might have helped identify him.”

He nods.

“I saw that movie about Jack the Ripper. You know the one with Johnny Depp?”

Annie rolls her eyes.

“That’s pure fiction. No reputable Ripper scholar believes that crap about a royal conspiracy.”

“I should probably find your knowledge of serial killer history disturbing,” he says. “But I don’t. It’s actually kind of charming.”

She smiles softly, and even though it’s dark in the restaurant, he thinks sees a faint blush on her cheeks too.

“I’m just full of useless information. What the best laptop for teachers is, which Jack the Ripper theories are legit, how to say pig in Polish…”

Jeff grins.

“Who says it’s useless? I’ve directly benefited from your extensive knowledge on more than one occasion.”

She meets his eyes across the table and he sees that brightness in her expression that always rattles his cage, leaves him wanting more. She closes the laptop and pushes it across the table toward him.

“You’re all set.”

“What would I ever do without you?” he asks playfully.

Annie shrugs, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

“Somehow, I think you’d manage to get by.”

 He cocks his head and pretends to consider the notion.

“Nah,” he tells her. “I don’t think so. I mean, who else is gonna tell me how to say pig in Polish at that crucial moment when I absolutely need to know?”

She smirks almost triumphantly.

“Abed, for one. He’s the one who taught me.”

Jeff huffs out a laugh and shakes his head.

“Then I guess you can be replaced,” he says. “But I should probably keep you around anyway. Just in case.”

She kicks at his foot beneath the table, but she’s smiling as she does it, almost like she can’t help herself.

\--

She rolls off him, flopping down onto the mattress, and takes a minute to catch her breath.

It may not literally be a minute – he’s not wearing a watch and his phone is across the room on his dresser so he can’t really time it -- but she doesn’t waste any time before she’s composing herself and darting out of bed to gather up her clothes.

She mentioned something earlier about having papers to grade for Crangel, which is probably why she’s in such a hurry, but it happens often enough so she doesn’t always need a good reason. From his bed, he watches her slip back into her underwear and refasten her bra just before taking the rest of her clothes into the bathroom.

“I’m starting to feel like one of us should be leaving money for the other on the dresser,” he calls to her as he sits up and finds his briefs on the floor.

Annie peeks her head in from the open doorway -- her wrinkled brow and sour frown make it clear that she thinks he’s nuts.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re always running out of here like your life is in danger... or your husband’s going to catch us.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she says, ducking back into the bathroom. “I told you – I’ve got –“

“Papers to grade,” he finishes for her. “I know. But you didn’t have papers last night. Or Monday.”

“I’m busy all the time, though. And when I’m not, I have to get back so Troy and Abed don’t put two and two together. Need I remind you that they already know we slept together once …”

He steps into the bathroom behind her because he doesn’t really want to have a conversation that involves yelling between rooms. Annie has her pants back on her, but her shirt is thrown over the towel rack as she stands in front of the vanity combing out her tangled hair. He takes a minute to admire the way her breasts look in the mint green lace of her bra – he was in such a hurry to undress her earlier that he didn’t really make the time to appreciate her lingerie – particularly when they bounce a little as she moves the comb through her hair.

“So what if they figure it out?” he asks, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I’m pretty sure the world wouldn’t end.”

She stills, dropping her eyes to the top of the vanity. After a minute, she tosses her comb back into her bag and turns to face him.

“It might not end,” she says. “But it would get really complicated. And I know neither of us wants that.”

He exhales slowly, not really sure what either of them wants. He finds himself grabbing his toothbrush from its stand on the vanity and squeezing a stripe of toothpaste down the middle just for something to do. Beside him, Annie leans in closer to the mirror, using a finger to wipe away a dark smudge of eyeliner or mascara from beneath her eye. He starts to brush his teeth, working slowly and methodically even as he keeps track of Annie in the mirror. She smooths a hand over the back of her head now and eyes her reflection critically.

 “I’m thinking of cutting my hair.”

He spits some toothpaste into the sink.

“Oh, yeah? How short?”

“Probably shoulder length… but sometimes I wish I was brave enough to try a bob.” She grabs her hair into a pony tail and tucks the end under in the back to create the illusion that it ends at her chin. “What do you think?”

He smirks at her reflection.

“Don’t be coy, Annie. You know you’re gorgeous. And you’d be gorgeous even if you shaved your head.” Her cheeks get a little pink and she ducks her head. “Though for the record, I’m not really a fan of the whole shaving the head idea.”

She smiles, turning to lean back against the edge of the vanity.

“You don’t have to worry. Because I’m going to wind up just getting a trim. That’s what always happens.” She shrugs. “Sometimes just the idea of change is more appealing than change itself, you know? You just want to know there are options.”

He spits into the skin again and wipes at his mouth.

“I don’t know. Sometimes, it’s good to shake things up a little.”

Annie reaches for her shirt, regarding him skeptically.

“Who are you kidding? You hate when anything in your life gets shaken up. Because it makes you feel out of control.”

He frowns at her reflection.

“I could throw out some cliché about glass houses and pots and kettles,” he says. “But I’m going to show some restraint.”

She pauses in buttoning up her shirt to smile at him.

“That’s new for you,” she teases.

She pats his stomach as she squeezes past him to head back into the bedroom. He scans his own reflection, trying to decide if he looks as tired as he feels.

\--

“Everyone thinks it’s weird that you still hang out with us.”

Jeff looks up from his phone and frowns at Abed. They’re sitting in the student lounge in the middle of a quiet afternoon and he’s spent most of the time waiting for his phone to ring or buzz or do something.

So he’s not really sure what the hell this conversation is about.

“Excuse me?”

“I think they thought you’d eventually stop. You know, because we’re still students and you’re teaching. Well, now Annie’s not a student anymore either… but she’s not a teacher either. She’s kind of in this in-between—“

“Abed,” Jeff says calmly. “You guys are my friends. You think I care what anyone else around here thinks about that?”

He glances back down at his phone, checking to make sure that it’s still turned on, that the battery hasn’t suddenly died.

“I think you care about what other people think sometimes,” Abed counters. “Yeah. But only when--”

Britta chooses the perfect moment to storm into the lounge and collapse onto the ratty sofa beside him with an annoyed groan – because she captures all of Abed’s attention immediately so Jeff is off the hook.

“Why are you guys such insecure douchebags?” She pauses, shaking her head. “I don’t mean you two in particular,” she clarifies. “I mean, men in general. It’s like you need everyone to know how much money you make or how expensive your car is or how big your dick is…”

Abed’s eyes narrow with interest, but Jeff only laughs.

“We really should get badges with all those important numbers on them,” he says. “Though I think I’d like mine listed in the reverse order. I mean, you want to lead with the most impressive, right? And my salary from Greendale isn’t going to cut it.”

“I’m being serious, here, Jeff,” Britta whines. “But then, I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this. You’re the king of braggy, arrogant douchebags.”

“It’s good to be king,” he says absently, checking his phone again – it’s been in his hand the entire time so it’s not really like he could have missed it vibrate but he doesn’t want to take a chance.

“We could probably be more sympathetic if you told us what this is all about,” Abed tells Britta.

She crosses her arms over her chest and twists her mouth into a petulant frown.

“Duncan,” is all she says.

Both Jeff and Abed raise their brows – suddenly, this quiet afternoon has taken a seriously interesting turn.

“Oh, not like that, you jerks!”

“I don’t know, Britta,” Jeff teases. “You come in here, all worked up because of something Duncan’s done… that seems pretty passionate.”

“It does have all the marks of masking frustrated attraction with over the top hatred and anger,” Abed agrees.

But Britta clearly isn’t impressed with their assessment.

“Shut up, you jerks. I’m angry for completely legitimate reasons. He’s supposed to be running this psych experiment we’re working on and he keeps leaving us to do all the work. Like, besides coming up with the idea in the first place, I don’t think he’s done one damn thing.”

Jeff nods absently, thumbing his phone on again to check for messages.

“And I thought it was bad when he was moping around because he couldn’t find a date,” Britta continues. “But now he’s got this really easily impressed girlfriend who he keeps bringing into the lab so he can brag about how he’s in charge of the whole thing and all that crap.”

“So you’re jealous of the woman he’s bringing in?” Abed asks.

“No!” Britta throws her hands up. “I wouldn’t care if it was his sister! I care that he’s doing nothing and then is still trying to take credit for everything. Garrett is almost completely useless, but he’s done more on this experiment than Duncan has.”

“Go talk to the Dean,” Jeff suggests.

“Please. He always sides with you faculty jerks.”

“I’m barely a faculty member. I don’t think I deserve the jerk label.”

Britta scowls his way.

“I think you’ve earned it a few times over by now, actually.”

He’s just about to come up with some clever retort when he spots Annie heading toward them. In the few seconds it takes her to cross the room, he tries to discern her mood from the expression on her face and nearly perfect posture, but she’s stubbornly unreadable.

“Hey, guys,” she says, sitting down in the arm chair opposite him – and maybe she sounds a little tired but other than that, she gives nothing away. 

Even when Jeff catches her eye, she only offers up a small smile.

“We’re trying to decide if Britta’s genuinely mad about Duncan’s lack of guidance in her psych experiment,” Abed tells her. “Or if her anger is really just a way to express passionate feelings for him that she refuses to acknowledge otherwise.”

Annie’s eyes widen and she glances at Jeff for confirmation – he just shrugs.

“Oh, don’t believe a word of that crap,” Britta says. “Because you’d totally be on my side, Annie. Duncan isn’t holding up his end of an academic bargain… and I’m going to go and confront him about it right now.”

She leaps to her feet and stalks off toward the hallway with grim determination. Abed grabs his bag and points after her.

“This strikes me as something I might like to see,” he says, following in her wake.

Jeff waits until he knows their friends are out of ear shot before turning to Annie and shooting her an expectant look.

“So?” he says. “How’d it go? I thought maybe you’d text and—“

“I didn’t want to bother you,” she tells him, smoothing her hands over her pants. “It went... I guess, it went as well as can be expected.”

She waited until they were half naked and more than a little breathless last night to casually inform him that she was having lunch with her father today – after nearly three months of exchanging emails and a couple of awkward phone conversations. She downplayed the whole thing, but he knew it was a big deal, especially when she pushed up on tiptoe just before she left his place to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone about my dad, okay?”

Jeff gets up and sits down on the corner of the sofa closest to her chair, so they can speak a little more quietly.

“Did he…” He tries to think of a delicate way to phrase it. “Was your uncle right about his drinking?”

Annie shrugs.

“I’m not really sure. He didn’t order a drink at lunch, so I was sitting there, trying to figure out a way to bring it up without seeming really judgmental or confrontational. I mean, it was the first time I’d seen him in a long while… I didn’t just want to accuse him, you know?”

Jeff nods.

“And he was asking all these questions about me, about what’s going on in my life,” she says, shaking her head. “And I just… I guess I liked it. I liked that he was taking an interest, you know? And it made me realize how much I miss him … and I didn’t want to screw everything up.”

He totally gets it, wanting to let ignorance be bliss and just enjoy the moment without worrying about what comes next. It’s the story of his life, he thinks.

“That’s understandable,” he tells her instead.

“But in the end, I couldn’t just ignore it,” she says. “If he had a problem and I didn’t do anything, I knew I’d never forgive myself. So I just kind of threw my uncle under the bus, said he had these concerns, and I was just sort of humoring him. I don’t think my dad bought it for a second but...”

She lifts her shoulders a little helplessly, and he can’t help himself from reaching out and running his hand down her back.

“What’d he say?”

“He said that he went through a tough time a couple of months back. He broke up with this woman that he really loved and he didn’t get the promotion he was counting on at work and he just sort of felt sorry for himself for a while. So he drank a little more than usual. For a little while. He says that it’s all under control now.”

Jeff nods thoughtfully.

“Do you believe him?”

Her laugh is dark and humorless – and it’s not a sound he likes much.

“I’m probably an idiot,” she says. “But I do.” She takes a deep breath and looks at him with an almost rueful smile. “You would definitely tell me I’m an idiot, actually. Because as I was sitting there, I was thinking about how little my dad’s been in my life the past few years and it’s not like I can excuse that or even really forgive it, but I sort of felt like I could understand what happened. Because I think he stayed away in the beginning because he thought it would be easier for me and then when he realized his mistake, it’d been so long that he hadn’t been in touch that he couldn’t just pick up the phone or send an email. Because when you let something go for that long, there’s no easy way to undo all of it. No matter how much you might want to.”

He looks down at the floor, feeling uncomfortable. Annie takes a deep breath and shifts forward in her seat.

“But you probably don’t agree,” she nearly whispers. “You probably think I’m being too—“

“Annie,” he says. “I don’t think you’re being too anything. It’s your father – you know better than me.”

When she looks up at him, her eyes are a little wet, like she’s trying not to cry.

“That’s the thing,” she declares. “My dad is a good person… and he was a good father for a long time too. When I was younger, the one thing that bugged me about him was how he treated my mother … or how he let her treat him, really. She would just walk all over him and he would fight with her sometimes, but in the end, he’d always let her get her way.”  She wipes at her eyes and sighs. “And this is going to sound terrible, I know, but you know how people are always saying little girls want to marry someone just like their father? Even as a kid, I remember thinking, no. No, I wouldn’t want to marry someone like my dad … because how could you ever respect someone who caves like that, who’s that weak?”

He has no idea what to say because he doesn’t think he’s processed all of it or understands why she’s really telling him and what she needs him to tell her in return – and he must be looking at her with a kind of stunned, dazed expression because she sits up a little straighter, tightens her grip on the strap of her bag, and hastily stands.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “That was way, way too much information. It’s been a weird day and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Just forget it, okay? Forget it.”

“Annie. It’s not—“

“I’ve got to talk to Crangel, actually… so I’ll see you later.”

He watches her hurry toward the exit, wondering if he should go after her. He still doesn’t know what to say, though, so he figures it’s best to give it some time.

So he goes back to his phone, thumbing through screens without knowing what he’s looking for.

\--


	8. Chapter 8

\--

He likes to think he’s being subtle, but he has his doubts.

It’s already after one, so it’s no surprise that Annie’s anxious to get home – he just isn’t as anxious for her to go. She picks her clothes up from the floor, shaking out the wrinkles as she goes and laying them across the foot of the bed, and he leans back against the pillows, tracking her progress.

“It’s Saturday night,” he says. “Aren’t Troy and Abed out doing something? They probably won’t notice if you’re home a little later.”

She shakes her head.

“Troy’s dating one of Rachel’s friends now so they’re always double-dating… and using our apartment for their dates. I don’t think I’ve had a moment alone in over a month.”

“You could just tell them you got stuck at the lab.”

“But then if I really do get stuck another night, Abed’ll start keeping track and realize I’m working more than the 25 hours a week I’m approved for right now and ---“

“Put two and two together,” he finishes for her – he’s lost track of how many times he’s heard that at this point.

He also doesn’t bother pointing out that her roommates didn’t seem to notice that they both left Greendale’s Halloween party early last weekend because she’s already smiling a little ruefully as she disappears into the bathroom.

It is late so he should probably just go to sleep when she leaves, but he finds he’s not really in the mood. He grabs the remote from his nightstand and turns on the TV, flipping through the channels until he finds Kurt Russell doing his best Minnesotan accent as he skates across the ice and stops to watch. He can hear water running and Annie humming some unidentifiable tune in the bathroom, and wonders why he can’t just ask her to stay, what exactly it would cost him to do it.

Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t know if she’d agree -- which wouldn’t really be a rejection; she could just want to sleep in her own bed or have an early day tomorrow or might honestly be worried about Troy and Abed finding out – that makes it so hard to do.

She comes out of the bathroom in her bra and underwear and grabs her pants from the bed. She notices the TV’s on and angles herself so she can catch a glimpse of what he’s watching.

“What is this?” she asks.

“’Miracle.’ It’s about the 1980 U.S. hockey team.”

She nods.

“Oh, right. They were big underdogs and won the gold medal. All that Cold War stuff.”

He grins, because of course she knows all about it -- because it’s not just about sports; it’s got the kind of historical context that would appeal to her.

“I forgot you’re such a big hockey fan,” he teases.

She gives him a dirty look, but sits on the corner of the bed, pants draped across her lap, and watches pretty intently as the team winds up with a tie in an exhibition game and has to skate back and forth across the ice until the rink is shut down.  She turns to look at Jeff with a frown.

“Did that really happen? Did he really make them do that?”

“I think so. But I doubt it ended in that melodramatic ‘I play for the United States of America’ moment.”

“You’re so cynical,” she tells him. “I bet that really happened.” She drops her pants back onto the bed beside her and scoots back until she’s sitting beside him. “Abed went through a sports movie phase a while back. I’m pretty sure he watched this, but I missed it.”

She leans back against the pillow, and it seems like she’s content to watch for a little while at least. He tries to focus on the TV and not on her in bed beside him, but she watches movies the same way that she does everything else, with the kind of intensity that makes it difficult to tear his eyes from her – especially when he catches her wiping at her eye when Kurt has to cut the last player from the team. 

“It’s a sports movie, Annie,” he says. “You can’t cry.”

She jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Oh, please. Sports movies are the worst. Like ‘Field of Dreams’ or ‘Rudy.’” She nods knowingly. “My brother was actually obsessed with ‘Rudy’ when he was little. It was on for like a year straight in our house – and I cried every time Rudy got to take the field.”

“That’s because you’re—“

His phone rings on the nightstand then, distracting him. It’s almost two in the morning and phone calls at that time usually mean some kind of emergency or another, which means he should probably answer it. He sees on the display that it’s Britta and holds up the phone so Annie can see too -- she looks a little panicked, like somehow Britta is going to be able to tell she’s with him as soon as he opens his mouth, but she manages to grab the remote from the bed between them and mute the TV.

“You home?” Britta practically barks over the line, barely a second after he accepts the call.

 “Yeah. I’m just about to—“

“I’m not drunk,” she insists. “Well, not that drunk. I don’t feel drunk at all actually, but I’ve gone through my bag like ten times and I can’t find my keys so either I’m drunk enough to have lost them or drunk enough that I can’t find them even though they’re in there. But it doesn’t really matter how drunk I am or not because I don’t have my keys so I can’t drive anyway.”

“O-kay,” he says warily.

“I’m at that snooty bar on 10th Street that you like. An old friend… who’s turned into a raging douchebag, by the way … you’d probably get along actually… he picked it and I’ve had as crappy a night as you can imagine. I’m only a few blocks from your place, so I’m just gonna come and crash on your couch. Because of the whole not being able to drive because I can’t find my keys thing. Okay?”

He looks over at Annie, sitting in his messy bed in her underwear, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on, and he feels the panic start to rise.

“Britta,” he says, as calmly and patiently as he can manage. “Why don’t you just call a cab? Because my couch is really uncomfortable and you’d be much better off in your own bed. And your cats… they probably need you to feed them or something.”

Annie’s smart enough to realize what’s going on now because she grabs for her pants and starts frantically pulling them on.

 “I’ve already started walking,” Britta says. “So I’ll be there in like a minute.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not—“

“Are you with someone? Because I won’t make a sound… your flavor of the month won’t even know I’m there.”

“No,” he lies. “I’m not with anyone. I just don’t—“

“Okay then.  See you soon.”

The call disconnects just like that, and he tries to mentally calculate how many minutes it would really take a – at least partially – drunken Britta to make it to his apartment. Annie fastens her shirt in a hurry, looking up at him with wide eyes.  She’s so freaked out that he doesn’t have the heart to tell she’s missed a couple of buttons.

“Britta’s coming here? Right now?”

He nods.

“She lost her keys or something and she’s at a bar down the street. She wants to sleep on the couch.”

Annie drops her eyes, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

Somehow, in a matter of seconds, the entire evening has blown up in his face like something straight out of a nightmare he’s pretty sure he’s had once or twice.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” she says. “I should have left an hour ago like I was going to…”

She steps into her shoes and he throws on a pair of pajama pants in time to walk her to the door. She’s angry or annoyed or maybe even hurt about something, and he could hazard a guess as to what the problem is, but there really isn’t time to talk about it now and maybe he’s not really interested in discussing it anyway so it’s a topic best left to another day. Annie reaches into her bag to find her car keys, though he suspects it’s really just a way to avoid looking at him.

A moment later, though, when he opens his apartment door and Britta’s standing right there in the hallway outside, Annie meets his eyes in absolute panic.

Britta’s looking at something on her phone, so she doesn’t realize anything is amiss for a minute. When she looks up and sees Annie, though, her mouth twists in confusion –  and that’s before she takes in Annie’s messy hair, misbuttoned shirt, and his lack of a shirt and the picture probably becomes a whole lot clearer.

“What’s going on?” she asks, and there’s nothing confrontational in her tone but there’s still a firmness to it that makes it obvious she knows exactly what’s going on.

“I was just leaving,” Annie says.

She moves forward to step around Britta, but their friend isn’t about to let it go that easily -- Britta steps inside, effectively pushing Annie back, and closes the door behind her, leaving the three of them trapped inside his apartment.

He tries to imagine a more awkward situation, but his brain doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders at the moment.

“You were just leaving,” Britta repeats. “What were you doing here in the first place?”

Annie looks at him helplessly, and even though there’s part of him that’s pretty sure telling the truth is the easiest way to go, especially if they want to make sure Britta’s okay with all of this, he fumbles for a reasonable excuse -- because Annie looks like the truth might actually have the power to undo her at the moment.

“I was having trouble with my laptop,” he says. “And Annie set the whole thing up for me so I asked her if she could take a look.”

Britta frowns, crossing her arms over her chest.

 “In the middle of the night? In your bedroom?”

She jerks her head to the open doorway behind him, where the TV illuminates the room just enough that the rumpled sheets cascading onto the floor are visible. Annie studies her shoes, almost like she’s trying to pretend she’s anywhere else in the world.

So Britta turns on him, focusing all of her ire his way.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s actually kind of a miracle that it took you so long to take advantage of her and –“

“Take advantage?” Annie snaps. “Do you have any idea how condescending you sound, Britta?”

“Oh, I’m not saying your innocent in all this, Annie. Believe me… but I know Jeff. I know how he operates and how he can manipulate people into getting what he wants.”

Annie gets a steely look in her eyes that honestly kind of scares him a little, which is probably why he doesn’t bother trying to defend himself.

“I’m almost 25 years old,” she says. “I’m not some child who’s incapable of making her own choices. Of knowing what she wants.”

Britta laughs, though she doesn’t really seem all that amused.

“You expect me to believe this is what you really want? Because I know you too, Annie. I know you don’t want to be sneaking around with him like you’re his dirty, little secret.”

Jeff looks over at Annie, who meets his eyes reluctantly. But she throws her shoulders back then, holds her head pretty damn high, and meets Britta’s gaze challengingly.

“What? Like you did?” she prods. “It’s really none of your business, Britta.”

She pushes past her now and it’s obvious that Britta’s not going to be able to stop her this time. She doesn’t slam the door, but it closes behind her loudly, and Jeff and Britta stand opposite one another, like some kind of standoff. He should be pissed at Annie for leaving him here alone to deal with this, but he knows if he were in her shoes, he would have beat a tactical retreat even sooner.

“You’re unbelievable,” Britta hisses. “An unbelievable asshole… no. You know what? I actually can believe it. Because this is so you. You never really change, do you?”

“Britta, you don’t know what—“

“And I’m going to go call a cab because the thought of sleeping even twenty feet from you makes me want to puke right now.”

She storms out of his apartment with all her usual sound and fury, the door rattling behind her when she slams it decisively. He should probably go after her because it’s late, and even though he lives in a good neighborhood, it’s probably not a great idea for her to wait around by herself. But she’ll probably stay in the lobby until her cab arrives and his following her down is only likely to send her outside.

He does try to call Annie, but it goes straight to voicemail.

All four times.

\--

When he gets to his office on Monday morning, they’re all waiting for him, like some kind of Wild West posse.

Britta and Shirley are sitting in the chairs in front of his desk, Abed’s leaning against a filing cabinet, and Troy’s wandering around, probably looking for something of interest – good luck, Jeff thinks. This place is pretty bare bones.

“Do I get any last words before I face the firing squad?” he asks, flippant as ever, as he takes a seat behind his desk.

He wouldn’t be in the mood for this on a good day, but the fact that Annie spent all day Sunday dodging his calls and texts has him even more annoyed than usual.

“Don’t think you can joke or charm your way out of this, mister,” Shirley declares.

Britta gets up and closes the door, as if that’s enough to keep Jeff here if he doesn’t want to be. He rolls his eyes, but tries to keep a straight face when he looks over at Shirley.

“We know Annie isn’t a teenager anymore,” Shirley says, and honestly, he wonders if they do. Because he knows he refused to acknowledge that she wasn’t a kid for a long, long time. “But she still has a big, old tender heart – and that’s a good thing. It’s one of the best things about her. We’re not just gonna sit back and let you play around with it. It’s not—“

“Do we really have to be here?” Troy asks, gesturing between he and Abed, who has a notebook out and is probably jotting ideas for his next screenplay and doesn’t actually seem like he wants to leave. “We don’t really wanna yell at Jeff. I mean, I guess I’m kind of annoyed because when you guys did it the first time, you said it was a one-time thing you were gonna forget about because you were drunk, but you guys kept on doing it and didn’t tell us…. When you knew you could trust us because we didn’t tell anyone about the first time.”

Britta turns and gapes at him.

“You knew what was going on with them and you didn’t say anything?” she gasps. “Troy, that’s –“

“I didn’t know! That’s what I’m saying. I knew they did it at my welcome home party but that was it.”

“This has been going on since February?” Shirley says. “You’ve been carrying on with her for months? Oh, come on, Jeffrey. You have to know what a bad idea this all is. You should know--”

There’s a knock at his office door then and everyone turns toward the sound in unison. If it’s the Dean and he insinuates himself in the middle of all this, Jeff is grabbing the scotch from his bottom drawer – he doesn’t care how fucking early in the day it is.

But when the door opens, it’s Annie who peeks her head in.

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

She obviously doesn’t see the group, in full attack mode, so he waves a hand over the room.

“You’re going to have to take a number. I’m a popular guy today.”

Annie pushes the door open all the way, and as soon as she sees Shirley and Britta, she stiffens, crossing her arms over her chest. Troy looks a little contrite, turning his head and pretending to study a spot on the wall, while Abed keeps his eyes trained on Annie, like this is a show he’s been waiting to see for a long time. She frowns, a dark look in her eyes, and he can’t lie – he’s a little scared of her in that moment.

“What are all of you doing here?”

“Annie,” Shirley says, and she sounds much calmer than she was with him just moments ago. “We’re your friends and we’re concerned about what’s going on—“

“No,” Annie says, shaking her head. “Stop right there. Because if you were really concerned, you would have come and talked to me about it. But instead you’re here ganging up on Jeff like he’s done something wrong.”

“Jeff’s a big boy, Annie,” Britta chimes in. “I’m pretty sure he can take care of himself.”

“Yeah, well, so can I,” declares Annie.

“Sweetie, just listen,” Shirley tries again. “No one’s saying you can’t take care of yourself. But we don’t want—“

“And this isn’t something that just happened the other night,” Annie says. “It’s been going on for months… and none of you knew, which means Jeff and I haven’t let anything that’s happening between us affect everything else so it’s really none of your business.”

Britta and Shirley look alternately pissed and hurt, but it’s clear from the grim determination in Annie’s face that she’s not about to apologize or back down. Jeff agrees with her – none of them seem to understand the concept of boundaries and they should mind their own damn business – and yet he knows this could get ugly fast so it seems best to nip it in the bud.

“Maybe we should table this discussion for another day,” he suggests. “You know, when I’ve had plenty of advanced warning and am properly hydrated with scotch.”

Annie looks at him, and maybe he imagines it but he swears that something in her face softens.

“That’s a great idea,” she says, and then turns on her heel and heads back out the door.

For a minute, his office is silent, and he doesn’t look up but he can feel Britta and Shirley glaring at him. It’s Troy who breaks the quiet, though, clearing his throat loudly.

“Whew,” he whistles. “Annie is *not* happy.”

“She isn’t,” Jeff agrees. “And I can’t say I’m feeling too happy myself.”

Britta snorts.

“Oh, please. You just sat there and let her do all the talking. You’re just a coward and –“

“I let her talk,” he says. “Because she obviously had some things she needed to say. I’m fully capable of telling you you’ve stepped over the line … because you have. And right now, I don’t particularly care how well-meaning all of this is, okay?”

It’s his damn office so he shouldn’t have to be the one to leave, but he does -- because it’s the fastest way to get out of this mess.  

\--

When he gets home, Annie’s sitting on the steps of his building.

It’s barely after four, but it’s already starting to get dark and there’s something about the sight of her in those shadows that makes him think everything might actually be okay.

She looks up when he gets closer and smiles a little sadly.

“That was exactly why I didn’t want them to know,” she says.

He nods.

“But it was kind of inevitable, right?”

She stands, brushing off the back of her pants, and grins.

“I don’t know. I thought we could have gone another seven or eight months easy.”

“Maybe you could have,” he teases. “Honestly, it’s probably good that it’s all out on the table. Takes some of the pressure off.”

She shrugs as he holds the door open for her.

“Be honest. Was I really awful this morning?”

“You stood your ground,” he says. “That’s nothing wrong with that. I just think everybody’s emotions were running a little high.” He nudges her arm with elbow. “You did remind me why I never want to get on your bad side, though.”

She smiles, elbowing him right back. He pushes the button for the elevator, and she leans back against the wall to face him.

“I have to talk to Britta,” she says. “I mean, I’ll apologize to Shirley too, but Britta’s probably really … “

She shakes her head, like she’s disappointed in herself.

“We just need to give it some time to blow over,” he tells her.  “And then we can figure out a way to talk to them.”

She nods slowly, still seeming a little preoccupied as the elevator arrives. But as soon as the doors close behind them, she presses him up against the back wall and pulls him down for a kiss. There’s a desperateness to it that both thrills and scares him, but he just clutches at her hips, trying to keep her in place.

“You didn’t get to see the end of ‘Miracle,’” he whispers against her mouth.

She grins lazily.

“It’s not like I don’t know how it ends.”

He pushes her hair aside and trails his mouth along the side of her neck.

“But that’s not really the most important part,” he says. “It’s all the stuff that leads up to it that really matters.”

She makes a non-committal humming sound against his throat and he feels her fingers slipping beneath the waistband of his jeans, skirting against the skin of his stomach in a way that makes him twitch. Before she can make a real contact, though, the elevator dings and the doors open at his floor.

“And here I was thinking things were going to be weird between us now,” he says as they stumble toward his apartment. “But it’s just business as usual.”

“Exactly,” Annie agrees. “Business as usual.”

They don’t bother going to the bedroom – she pushes him down on the couch and straddles his lap before he even has his jacket off. She kisses him slowly and deliberately now, like she’s trying to memorize the taste and texture of the mouth, and he slides his tongue against hers just as carefully. It leaves him breathless and senseless after barely a minute, though, so when she starts plucking at the buttons on his shirt, he drops his head to the back of the sofa and closes his eyes.

“I hope Shirley and Britta didn’t get to you,” she says as she works on his shirt. “I mean, I hope you aren’t listening to them. You’re not taking advantage of me. You know that, right?”

He lifts his head and looks at her, hair falling in her face, and nods.

“Yeah. I think I do. I definitely know there’s more going on here than they realize.”

She’s down to his last button, but her hands still and she lifts her shoulders a little.

“None of it’s their business, though.”

He doesn’t like the nervous, unsure look in her eyes, because it wasn’t there just a few minutes ago and he can’t really make sense of it.

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “If we’re honest, isn’t it a little bit their business? They are our friends. Our only real friends.”

“Well, yeah. Of course. But look at them, making such a big deal out of it.”

He reaches out to push her hair behind her ear so he can meet her eyes more easily. Her gaze keeps darting around the room, though – on the cushions, the ceiling, the painting on the far wall.

Anywhere but at him.

“They definitely overreacted, but it is a big deal, isn’t it?” he asks. “Think about how you reacted when we slept together the night of Troy’s party. It was definitely a big deal.”

She lets out a nervous giggle and scoots off his lap, dropping onto the couch beside him.

“I know. I just meant that… I think they’re under the impression this is all a lot more serious than it is so I understand why they’re nervous about it. But we can explain it to them and they’ll realize it’s not—“

There’s the sound of something roaring in his ears then, so he can’t make out the rest of what she’s saying. He shakes his head, laughing a little to himself because the whole thing feels absurd all of a sudden.

“Wait a second,” he says. “How exactly are we going to explain it to them? What are we going to tell them is going on here?”

She lets out a breathy sigh and throws her hands up.

“You know, that we’re just having fun and …”

She trails off, like she doesn’t quite know how to explain it herself – and he understands that this is all on him because he’s known all along how he feels but didn’t say anything, just counting on her to instinctively understand, know what it all meant.

“Annie, we need to clear something up,” he says. “I should have told you this from the start, actually, but I was caught off guard by the whole thing so I was just trying to keep—“

“Jeff, this isn’t necessary. I don’t need you to—“

“Let me finish, okay? I might not get the nerve to do it again.”

She’s silent for a long moment, but then nods slowly.

“I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff,” he tells her. “But I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.”

He isn’t sure what reaction he’s expecting, but the two that seem most likely are some sort of happy squealing or a hard smack across the face, so her sad, almost resigned expression confuses the hell out of him.

“Jeff,” she sighs. “You don’t have to do this.”

 “Do what?”

“Talk yourself into believing you feel something because you’re worried about my fragile little heart.” She pats his knee in what he assumes is supposed to be a reassuring manner, but only leaves him feeling like an idiot. “I’m fine with all of this. Really.”

“That’s not what—“

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she says. “I know sex and love aren’t the same thing, that they don’t always go together.”

He frowns at her, wondering if he’s lost his mind.

But he knows he’s not crazy. He knows he hasn’t imagined all the occasions over the years when it’s been obvious that whatever’s going on between them is a two-way street, that she doesn’t look at him in a way that no other woman ever has. And even if he doubted any of that, even if he’d just been reading into innocent, easily explained away moments, Borchert’s lab is all the proof he needs – because when she delivered that speech about letting each other want the things they want, he knew what she was telling him, that she loved him so much she would want him to be happy with someone else.

He didn’t imagine that.

“Are you saying you don’t have any feelings for me? This is just about getting off and—“

“No,” she cries. “No. Of course, I have feelings for you. We’ve known each other for years and we’ve been through so much and I –“

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Annie, and you know it.”

She looks away, nervously twisting her hands in her lap.

“Why are you making this so complicated, Jeff? It’s been working.”

He huffs out a quiet laugh because it seriously feels as if the world has turned upside down.

“Maybe it hasn’t been working for me.”

She turns to him sharply, and he can see that she’s still not quite sure whether she’s angry, hurt or scared -- he totally understands that.

“I don’t remember you complaining,” she snaps.

“I was freaked out, okay? I don’t feel like this every day, Annie, and I needed time to process it… and then I needed some time to figure out a way to tell you.”

For a moment, she looks dazed, all wide eyes and trembling mouth. But then her eyes narrow and she lets out a dark little laugh.

“I don’t know who you’re trying to fool here, Jeff,” she says. “Because you had to get blackout drunk to even let yourself touch me.” She stands, crossing her arms over her chest almost like she’s trying to shrink in on herself. “But you were stone cold sober when you asked Britta to marry you... so excuse me if I question the sincerity of all this.”

He gapes at her for a minute because he doesn’t understand how they could be back there, to something that happened over a year and a half ago, before they’d even kissed again. She can’t really think that Britta has anything to do with this, that he’s been pining for Britta this entire time and settling for her as some kind of consolation prize. It’s beyond insulting, and not who he is at all – if he wanted Britta, he’d have Britta. That’s how he works.

“I wasn’t drunk when I asked Britta to marry me,” he agrees. “But I was out of my mind so the effect was the same. And I’ve touched you plenty of times without needing a drop of alcohol so I don’t know what your point is.”

She shakes her head, unimpressed by his logic.

“Because we’d already slept together and I was used goods.”

He barks out a laugh.

“This isn’t the 50s, Annie. You’re not used anything.”

A long, slow breath shudders out of her and her shoulders droop and suddenly, she seems very tired. He feels her pain – he’s exhausted by all of this crap too.

“Explain this then,” she says. “We’ve been sleeping together for months – why didn’t you tell me at any point during that time that you… had other feelings?”

He can only shrug.

“Because I figured you knew how I felt.”

“How?” she demands.

“It’s pretty damn obvious, Annie,” he says. “And not just since we’ve been sleeping together. For years. Everyone and their mother has commented on it at some point. I obviously didn’t do a very good job of hiding it.”

She stares at him like he’s got two heads.

“Are you serious? I’m supposed to read your mind? Gee, I wonder why I’d be reluctant to do that.”

He looks away, feeling something like shame twist through him. She’s right, of course – he hadn’t exactly made it easy to give him the benefit of any doubt over the years.

 “Okay, fine,” he says. “You’re right. I should’ve just told you.  So I’m telling you now – I love you and I don’t—“

“Stop saying that!” she yells. “Stop saying things you don’t mean just because you think they’re what I want to hear. Because you’re trying to spare my feelings.”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Annie.” He stands and takes a few steps toward her. “I wouldn’t do that. Not about this.”

“Right. Because you’re always so honest about what you’re thinking and feeling,” she scoffs. “I know you, Jeff.  I know that you would say anything you had to to smooth things over or get out of an uncomfortable situation. But listen to me… you don’t need to. I’m not expecting some happily ever after here so you can just stop.”

All of this has spiraled so far out of his control that he finds himself kind of speechless. So he repeats the only thing that still means anything at the moment.

“Annie, I love you. This isn’t me trying to coddle or appease you. This is me telling you the truth for once.”

She looks pretty damn close to tears now, her eyes shining and her chin trembling, but she seems determined not to cry. She takes a deep breath and shakes her head.

“Yeah, well. I guess I just don’t believe you.”

She grabs her bag from the floor and hurries for the door like she’s worried he might try and stop her. For a second, he even considers it, but then he thinks that maybe it’s best to cut his losses. She doesn’t slam the door behind her, just pulls it closed with a soft thud, but the sound still has a disturbing finality to it.  

\--

With the mood he’s in, he decides it’s best to avoid everyone.

He even dodges the students in his 9 o’clock class -- who don’t even know anything about the embarrassing state of his personal life -- by texting the Dean to cancel it with some vague excuse about car trouble. He could cancel his afternoon class too, but sitting around his apartment hasn’t proved all that appealing so he thinks maybe a distraction, even in the form of teaching, is what he needs.

When he gets to campus with twenty minutes to spare, though, he refuses to go to his office where it would be logical to look for him and instead hides out in his car, slumped down in the driver’s seat with sunglasses on as he tries to work up the strength to face whatever crap Greendale will inevitably throw at him this afternoon.

For a moment, he finds himself missing Pierce in a way that makes him a little uncomfortable – because sure, Pierce would have plenty inappropriate things to say and plenty of inappropriate questions to ask, but he wouldn’t get all judgmental about the whole thing with Annie. He might even buy Jeff’s feelings as the real thing, wouldn’t think Jeff’s lying about being in love at the very least.

Because as fucked up and awful as Pierce could be – and really, that’s what he was most of the time – he had to know how hard it is open yourself up to that kind of thing, how rare it is to actually find it. He got married so many times because he kept looking, kept hoping it would work out.

And maybe it never actually does. Maybe no one really loves anyone forever, but maybe there’s something worthwhile in trying. Maybe in the end, that’s enough.

Or maybe it all blows up in your face and you wind up hiding out in your car because everyone thinks you’re an asshole.

Pierce would probably be able to offer some clarity in that regard.

There’s a tap at his passenger side window then, and he looks over to see Shirley peering inside, which makes him think the world is a pretty crappy place if a guy can’t even get any peace in his own damn car.

He instinctively jerks upward and she gestures to the door, so he reluctantly unlocks it. She settles herself in the seat beside him, straightening her scarf unnecessarily for what seems like a minute or two, leaving him stuck sitting there in uncomfortable silence. Finally, Shirley lets out an airy, little sigh and turns toward him.

“I thought about it all last night,” she says. “And maybe ganging up on you yesterday wasn’t the best way to handle this situation.”

 “You don’t say?”

She shoots him a half-hearted evil eye, but he’s probably getting off easy, all things considered.

“So I thought if it was just us, talking one-on-one that maybe we could have a real discussion. Because I know we both care about Annie and don't want to see her get hurt for anything in this world.”

He nods, because really, he’s tired of all this shit and the path of least resistance is the most tempting at the moment.

“I understand the appeal,” Shirley says. “I really do. She’s a beautiful girl and she’s really sweet and knock-your-socks-off smart, so it’s only natural you’d be drawn to her… and really, you resisted for a longer than I ever imagined you would so I give you credit for that…”

He laughs because if Shirley knew some of the tactics he employed over the years to resist Annie, all the dirty fantasies and jerking off in the shower whenever Annie wore that one really tight blue sweater or low-cut floral top thing or the black skirt so tight and short it was just this side of indecent, he doubts she’d be so generous.

“But the thing is,” Shirley continues. “Even though she’s older now, she’s still so sensitive… and I know you wouldn’t hurt her intentionally, but if you’re not on the same page as she is in terms of what you’re wanting out of this relationship, then you’re being careless and her heart can get broken just the same.”

“Let me—“

“And sure, she’s a tough cookie… she could get over a broken heart, but I don’t know if she could get over it if *you* broke her heart. And not because you’re God’s gift to women or some other nonsense like that like you’re probably thinking. Because you’re not just some random guy. You’re part of her family—“

“Shirley, I really don’t—“

“And I’m not saying that to make you feel creepy or anything. I just mean that if things fall apart, you can’t just walk away from each other. You’re way too tangled up in each other’s lives for that, so it’ll be messy and painful, and the rest of us’ll get caught in the middle.”

This kind of lecture would annoy him on the best of days, but today it strikes a nerve that’s pretty damn raw.

“Enough, Shirley,” he barks. “You can stop right there, because if you’re so worried about hearts getting broken, Annie’s the person you should be having this conversation with.”

Shirley stares back at him blankly.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I’m in love with her,” he blurts out without thinking. “I have been for a long time. And she’s the one who just wants to keep having a good time.”

Shirley’s brow wrinkles in confusion and maybe a little disbelief, but she must see something earnest in his expression because she lets out a surprised, little sigh.

“You’re serious? You love her?”

He nods, dropping his gaze to the steering wheel.

“Oh, Jeffrey... I didn’t realize it was that serious for you.”

He hates the pity he hears in voice, like he’s some poor, wounded puppy that she needs to save from the middle of road – and yet, the idea that someone’s actually seeing the whole thing from his point of view, trying to understand where he’s coming from, is kind of novel and he feels himself warming to it.

“None of this has been what I expected,” he hears himself saying. “I mean, it’s not like I fantasized about a relationship with Annie or anything... you know, because I’m not a 12-year old girl, but I guess I just thought being with her would be different. And it’s my fault, really, because I started to think I didn’t really need to tell her, I expected her to just figure out how I felt.  But it turns out, the whole time, Annie thought I just wanted sex… because I really wanted Britta but couldn’t have her or some crap like that… It’s crazy.” He shakes his head. “Because, you know, if all I wanted from Annie was sex, I would have slept with her a long time ago. At least three, maybe even four, years ago so …”

Shirley’s mouth twists into a frown, almost like she’s tasted something sour.

“I’m just going to ignore that last part because I can see how much you’re hurting right now.”

That’s all it takes for him to realize exactly how much he’s revealed – if Shirley’s willing to cut him slack and ignore the fate of his mortal soul, he's said way too much.

“You know what? Just forget it,” he sighs. “I had a ton of papers to grade last night so I didn’t get much sleep and I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t even know what—“

“Oh, stop it,” she orders. “My boys try to pull one over on me all the time so my B.S. detector is second to none. You don’t have be all tough with me, Jeff.  I know you better than that.”

“Shirley, please. Can we not—“

“You should talk to Annie,” she says, as if it’s really that easy. “You two obviously need to have this out so you can get on the same page. Because we both know you could sell ice to an Eskimo if you put your mind to it. If you’ve got the truth on your side, you can get through to Annie.”

He looks over at her, eyebrows raised.

“So now you think the two of us together is a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” she tells him honestly. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea. But you’re not the kind of man who goes throwing the L-word around willy nilly… so it means something. And I think you should probably see it through.” She grabs up her purse and reaches over to undo the lock. "Because let’s face it, you’re not getting any younger here.”

He sees the teasing gleam in her eye and appreciates the fact that she’s taken a page from his book, trying to lighten the mood with a little humor.

“Thanks, Shirley. That’s really encouraging.”

She shoots him a pleased, little smile and opens the door. But she’s barely got one foot outside when she turns back to him, all serious and determined.

“Just talk to her, Jeff,” she says. “And if she hurts you again, she’ll answer to me, all right?”

She smiles as she says it, but there’s something in his voice that makes him think she’s at least a little bit serious – and maybe he should appreciate the fact that she’s looking out for him, but the idea that she thinks he needs to be protected is more than a little embarrassing.

And protected from Annie no less.

When she closes the door and he’s alone again, he drops his head back against the seat and sighs. He should have cancelled his fucking afternoon class.

\--

He’s in the middle of his fourth set of push-ups when someone starts pounding at his door.

Exercise seemed like a good idea when he got home from work, an effective distraction to clear his head for a little while. But now he’s all sweaty and his arms ache and he still doesn’t know what the fuck he should do – or maybe more importantly, what he wants to do.

This is why you don’t fall in love, he thinks. It’s a sucker’s bet.

He’s so mixed up at the moment that he’s not even sure if he’s annoyed or not to find Annie on his doorstep.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demands, pushing her way into his apartment.

“Oh, hey Annie. Why don’t you come in?” he says dryly. “Make yourself at home?”

She stops in front of the sofa, dropping her hands to her hips in what he assumes is a move to make sure he knows she means business.

“I’m serious, Jeff. What were you thinking?”

“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question.” He grabs the towel from the back of his kitchen stool and wipes at his forehead. “Or else you’re gonna have to get more specific. Because I’ve probably had at least two or three thoughts today.”

She sighs in frustration, shaking her head.

“Why would you tell Shirley that you…” She hesitates and lowers her voice. “That you’re in love with me?”

He chuckles a little, almost despite himself, because even with the whole embarrassment angle, the mental image of Shirley lecturing Annie on his behalf, delivering the same kind of ‘don’t you dare’ speech to her that he got, is more than a little amusing – though Annie apparently doesn’t agree, considering the way she scowls at him

“Shirley wanted to talk about what’s going on with us. So I explained as best as I could.”

“Why not tell the truth then?” Annie demands. “That we were having a good time and that’s exactly what—"

“Because that’s not the truth.” He drapes the towel around his neck and shrugs. “Not for me anyway.”

When she sighs, it’s a strangely loud sound in his otherwise quiet apartment. She lowers her head almost wearily, contemplating the floor for a long moment. Jeff isn’t uncomfortable with silence – he’s lived alone for more than half his life so it’s a familiar soundtrack – but he really wishes she would say something or just leave already. This standoff crap is like torture, and while he’s sure he deserves at least a little of it, he’d like to put it off a couple of days.

But Annie looks up at him, pinning him with her dark gaze, and he thinks it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.

“You didn’t like it?” she asks, and there’s something almost hopeful and flirty in her tone. “How we were together?”

“You know I did. But that’s not the point.”

The corner of her mouth lifts up in an almost smile, and suddenly, she’s headed across the room toward him, stepping so close that she has him pressed back against the kitchen counter. He’s still sweaty, but she doesn’t seem to mind, trailing her fingers down his side from his ribs to his hip. There’s nothing but confidence in her touch because she knows how he reacts to her, understands precisely how badly he wants her, and his skin feels simultaneously feverish and chilled as the pads of her fingers drift over him.

“Let’s just go back to having fun,” she whispers, stretching up to press her lips to his jaw. “And forget all this other stuff…”

Her breath is hot on his throat as she balances against him so she can seal her mouth over his. He kisses her because there really isn’t any alternative when she’s rubbing against him like this. But then she slides her hand a little lower, her fingers toying with the drawstring on his shorts, and he knows what’ll happen if he lets her keep going – they’ll have sex without talking anything of this out and she’ll only be even more convinced that that’s all he’s after and they’ll be stuck in an endless loop of this crap.

So he wraps a hand around her wrist to stop her and drift backs to put a little space between them.

“We can’t,” he says. “Not like this.”

Her eyes are wide and dark, like it’s painful just to be standing here with him now.

“Why are you making this so difficult?”

“For once, Annie, I don’t think it’s me that’s being difficult.”

She turns away from him, pacing in the space behind the sofa.

“You’re acting like I don’t know you, Jeff. Like I don’t know how you are with women.”

He frowns.

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You like to keep things casual. You love ‘em and leave ‘em. You—"

He barks out a laugh.

“What about any of this has struck you as casual, Annie?”

“But that’s the point. With any other woman, you wouldn’t—"

“Stop talking about other women,” he snaps. “You’re not just any woman, Annie. You have to know that by now.”

She nods slowly, but he realizes that her agreeing with him isn’t a good thing.

“Exactly. You don’t think of me like other women … because we’re friends and you’re worried about breaking my heart. So you’re trying to force yourself—"

“I don’t think of you like any other woman because I love you,” he says. “That’s the reason.”

“Jeff,” she sighs. “Don’t keep doing this. Please. Because I can’t take it.”

He lifts his shoulders helplessly.

“I don’t know what to tell you then.”

She takes a deep breath and wipes at her eyes. For a minute, they just look at one another from opposite sides of room and he thinks of all the stupid, little moments they’ve spent together, from the evening she showed up uninvited to his faux study group to just a few days ago when she stroked a hand over his cheek while he moved inside her, and wonders if they’re all honestly going to come down to this one, in his quiet apartment, with SportsCenter playing on the TV.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, fine. Then I guess that’s it.”

He doesn’t say a word or even look her way as she heads for the door and closes it behind her.

\--

 


	9. Chapter 9

\--

Abed texts and asks him for a favor – he needs a ride to his father’s house because his dad is out of town, visiting family, and he insists that Abed bring in the mail and paper regularly so no one knows the house is empty and water some plants while he’s there. Jeff doesn’t know who Abed usually asks to play chauffer, but he assumes that his being asked this time isn’t just happenstance.

He’s actually willing to bet big money that Abed wants to pump him for information about what’s going on between him and Annie – partly because Abed cares about Annie and cares about Jeff, but also because his curiosity always gets the better of him. And it’s not because he necessarily wants to borrow from their real lives for his next story idea, but because he’s always trying to better understand human nature, the ways people react to one another, to themselves even. He just can’t help himself.

So Jeff ‘s a little surprised when Abed gets into the car and immediately starts ranting about some foreign film he just saw with Rachel, explaining that it’s overrated crap, that subtitles can’t hide away glaring plot holes and poorly written characters.

“You’re pretty worked up about this,” Jeff says, amused.

Abed shrugs.

“I just hate it when my intelligence is insulted. A filmmaker should respect his audience.”

Jeff just nods, because he doesn’t know anything about this movie and doesn’t really care. He’s just relieved they’re talking about something stupid and harmless and not the state of his love life, so he endures the rest of this conversation and another one about how Abed thinks they’ve changed the recipe they use for the mac and cheese in the cafeteria and he wants to bring it up at the next committee meeting because it’s way too bland now.

“It definitely needs a little something extra,” he declares. “Like garlic … or a little chili powder.”

At his father’s house, Abed asks if Jeff wants to come inside, but he opts to wait in the car, pulling his cellphone out of the cup holder and starting a game of Fruit Ninja. Even as he’s slicing through a watermelon and pineapple, he’s thinking about calling Annie or texting Annie or emailing Annie. He has nothing new to say, but they can’t leave things the way they are, for their sake and everyone else’s– he knows that.

But if he still doesn’t know what to tell her, there’s a strong chance he’ll only screw it up and make things even worse.

So he concentrates on chopping through animated fruit like it’s a matter of life and death instead. He’s so engrossed in it, actually, that he doesn't notice Abed on his way back to the car until he opens the door.

“Texting Annie?” he asks.

Jeff fumbles with his phone, dropping it against the steering wheel and into his lap.

“What? No. Why?”

Abed shrugs.

“She was really upset when she got home the other night. She wouldn’t talk about it, no matter how many supportive lines I spouted from her favorite rom coms and how many cookies Troy offered her. I figured it had something to do with you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jeff lies feebly – and of course, Abed’s having none of it.

“Come on, Jeff. Didn’t we just talk about how I don’t like my intelligence being insulted?”

Jeff leans his arms against the wheel and rests his head against them because he can think of about a dozen things he’d rather be doing than talking about all of this again, including getting root canal without the benefit of Novocaine. He knows his friends probably mean well, but this clearly can’t be fixed with a clever speech and charming smile – he’s tried all of that and it hasn’t work.

Abed exhales wearily, like he’s just as sick of all of it as Jeff is.

“You really made a mess of things,” he says. “You do that a lot, actually.”

Jeff lifts his head, laughing darkly.

“Thanks, buddy. I appreciate the pep talk.”

“I talked to Shirley, so I know you’re in love with Annie,” Abed continues. “But she doesn’t believe it.”

Jeff frowns.

“I didn’t think I needed to tell Shirley that wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted spread around. We’re all seriously going to have to have a conversation about boundaries one of these days.”

“Why would you let things go so far without telling her how you felt? You know Annie. You know the kind of things that are important to her.”

“Yeah, in hind sight, it was a stupid thing to do,” Jeff concedes. “But I couldn’t figure out a way to tell her and I thought she’d understand what it all meant. I mean, I don’t act that way with just anybody.”

“But you didn’t just do it for a few weeks. You let it go on for months … and then only told her after we all found out. It makes sense that she doesn’t believe you.”

 “And why’s that?”

“Because she’s probably thinking you only said it to legitimize the whole thing for us.”

Jeff sputters out a laugh.

“Wow… so I’m so much of an asshole that she thinks I’d lie about being in love with her just so you guys wouldn’t come down too hard on me? I didn’t realize she thinks that little of me.”

Jeff shakes his head, a little thrown by the idea. Annie can’t honestly think that’s what’s going on – they’ve been together for months and it was never his idea to keep the whole thing under wraps, or at least, continue to keep it under wraps. That was all her.

“I don’t think she thinks you’re lying really,” Abed says. “She probably thinks you’re just trying to convince yourself that you feel that way to avoid hurting her. You know, because you’re always trying to protect her… even from yourself.”

When he puts it like that, Jeff thinks, it’s not so difficult to understand where Annie’s coming from – because he would do nearly anything for her, to keep her from getting hurt. But he hopes she’d know he’s smart enough to understand that telling someone you love her when you really don't is a one-way ticket to pain and heartbreak, so it offers no protection at all.

Abed pulls on the seatbelt, fastening it in place. When he looks up, his expression is almost hesitant, a rarity for him.

“I know a while back I told you I wouldn’t ask,” he says. “I said you should work it out on your own. But you’ve had a lot of time so … it was Annie, wasn’t it? Back in Borchert’s lab? She was your burst of passion.”

“Does it really matter?” Jeff asks, starting the engine.

Abed lifts his shoulders as he fiddles with the radio.

“It probably would to Annie.”

\--

He gives in and tries to call her – it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that’s going to get any better if he waits – but she clearly isn’t ready to talk to him because her voicemail picks up after barely two rings, which means she rejected the call.

He doesn’t leave a message.

Cornering her in person is a risky move too, but he figures it’s worth a shot – and doing it at Greendale is probably the best tactic because they’re less likely to make a scene if other people are around to overhear.

At least, in theory.

They’ve both proven themselves capable of losing their shit in big ways, audience be damned.

He’s plotting the best spot to casually run into her when he gets a 911 text from the Dean -- considering the messenger, he’s reluctant to take it all that seriously, but for all he knows, there’s another fast food corporation set on taking over the school, so he heads for the administrative office just to make sure it’s something harmless, like Craig needing help deciding which tie to wear to dinner with his sister or whether he should paint his kitchen sage or sea foam green.

And it’s as if fate has decided to intervene because when he gets to the Dean’s office, Annie’s standing in front of his desk and glaring down at Pelton like he’s just insulted her method of organizing her bookshelf alphabetically by author. Her eyes drift over to Jeff for a moment when she hears him come in and they seem to burn a little darker.

“How could you be so irresponsible?” she says, her attention back on the Dean. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Annie, if you let me explain—“

The office door opens again before he can finish, though, and Britta comes trudging in, looking just as he feels – like she’d rather be any place else.

“Okay, okay… what’s the big emergency?”

When she sees Jeff and Annie, her frown deepens and she crosses her arms over her chest.

“Let’s all calm down for a minute,” the Dean says. “There’s no reason to get so worked up.”

“Oh, there’s a pretty good reason,” Annie insists.

“And that is?” asks Jeff.

“He lost a flash drive full of this semester’s first year students’ social security numbers and other private information.”

“I didn’t lose it!” The Dean throws his hands up defensively. “I misplaced it. I know for a fact that it’s in this office. I just need some help finding it.”

“And that really takes three of us?” Jeff asks.

“Well, Annie’s here as the brains, and you’re obviously here as the brawn,” the Dean says, a little coyly, which is all it takes for Britta and Annie to both groan. “In case we need to move any furniture,” he clarifies. “And Britta’s here… well, Britta’s here because Troy and Abed were busy.”

Behind him, Jeff hears Britta sigh in annoyance, and he knows that the sooner they can find this stupid flash drive, the better it will be for everyone.

“Where did you have it last?” he asks, which is obviously a stupid question but they’ve got to start somewhere.

“I had it right here in this mug,” the Dean says, lifting a white and black polka-dotted coffee mug from the desk. “But then I had to empty it because I wanted some hot chocolate … Rhonda makes it with half and half, not water, so it’s *really* good and I figured I’d earned it because I’d done quite a bit of—“

“Can you please focus?” Annie snaps.

“So I took the drive out of the mug and I thought I put it right here on the corner of my desk, but I was a little distracted because I was watching a video of this dog that can actually merengue. I know it sounds crazy… I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes but he really can. It is really impressive.”

Annie clearly doesn’t care much about dancing dogs because she crouches down beside the Dean’s desk, checking the floor to see if the drive fell beneath it. It seems ridiculous that it could just be lying there in the worn shag of the carpeting, but this is the Dean they’re dealing with, so Jeff understands why she’d start with the obvious.

“And you didn’t leave your office?” Jeff prods. “Between the last time you saw it and when you realized it was missing?”

“Nope. Rhonda came in and took my mug. I finished the video. She brought me my hot chocolate. I watched another video of a cat that—"

“We don’t really need to know everything you watched,” Jeff says tiredly.

“Well, I’m just explaining I didn’t leave,” the Dean defends a little testily. “I realized the drive was missing and texted all of you.”

Annie gets back to her feet, scanning the surface of his desk.

“Did you even leave your desk?”

“No. I took a mint out of my pocket because I like to put one in my hot chocolate to…” He trails off, tapping his hand against hip. “Oh…”

“Oh what?” demands Annie.

The Dean reaches into his pocket and extracts a roll of Peppermint Lifesavers and a flash drive.

“You had it in your pocket this entire time?” Britta says incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“Well, I didn’t realize it was there obviously. I wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it if—"

“Give it to me,” Annie orders. “You clearly can’t be trusted with it.”

“That’s a little harsh, Annie,” the Dean says, handing over the drive. “But I would prefer not to responsible for such vital information so…”

“I’ll take it to the IT department. Get them to encrypt the information like it should have been from the start.”

She makes her way out from behind the desk, and as she tries to hurry past Jeff, he steps into her path to slow her down.

“Can we talk for a minute?” he asks quietly.

She barely meets his eyes as she sidesteps him.

“I should probably get down there as soon as possible.”

He nods, because he’s not about to make a big deal of it in front of the current audience. Her reluctance to talk to him doesn’t go unnoticed, though, because once Annie’s gone, he hears Britta laugh.

“That didn’t take long. I figured you might make it a week before it all blew up in your face.”

“When you have a relationship that lasts longer than five minutes,” he snaps. “Then maybe we’ll talk.”

The Dean groans theatrically.

“Oh, what is wrong with you two now?”

“You haven’t heard?” Britta says, almost gleefully. “Apparently, Jeff is head over heels in love with Annie.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jeff practically yells. “Did Shirley tell *everyone*?”

The Dean waves a dismissive hand.

“Like that’s news?” He shuffles some papers on his desk. “I swear, with the way all of you carry on around here, I really didn’t need to buy those 'Melrose Place’ DVDs.”

“Don’t look at me,” Britta says. “This has got nothing to do with me.”

“Maybe this time, but it’s not like…” The Dean trails off, a vaguely panicked look coming over his face. “You know, now that I think about it, I should probably go with Annie to make sure that flash drive gets to the IT department safely. Because I may have forgotten that I have a few personal photos on it.”

When he flies out of his chair and bolts from the room, Jeff’s ready to follow him, but Britta pushes away from the wall like she’s spoiling for a fight -- or at least some kind of confrontation – and he figures it’s best to get this out of the way.

“You *love* her?” she scoffs, and her tone is so skeptical that it’s clear she doesn’t really expect him to answer the question. “Come on, Jeff. You don’t have to lie about something like that to justify sleeping with her. Because we all know what kind of guy you are. And you’ve wanted to screw her since she was barely legal… but claiming you love her is a new low even for you.”

“So you think I’d lie about this too?” He shakes his head. “It’s nice to know what my friends really think of me.”

Britta shrugs.

“You somehow managed to get Shirley to believe you. So there’s that.”

“Yeah, but you know, things would probably be working out a little better for me if I could convince Annie,” he says, leaning back against the Dean’s desk.

In that moment, he must look as defeated and hopeless as he feels because something seems to shift in Britta’s expression. Her eyes go a little wide and she opens her mouth soundlessly as she studies him.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…” she nearly gasps. “You’re *seriously* in love with her? This isn’t like the time I declared my love to one up Slater or you asked me to marry you because you were scared out of your mind? This is the real, legit thing?”

He sighs raggedly and lifts his shoulders.

“I don’t have much to compare it to,” he admits, and Britta comes to sit against the desk beside him – it actually makes it a little easier to talk about all of this if he doesn’t have to look her in the eye. “So I’m making an educated guess… but yeah. It feels like the real thing.”

Britta’s silent for a long beat, and the room fills with the kind of awkward tension that he usually looks to avoid at all costs. He should have followed his instincts and left when the Dean did.

“Wow,” she finally whispers. “Wow. I didn’t realize it was this serious. I didn’t realize you…”

She shakes her head, and he lowers his eyes, staring at a coffee stain on the carpet.

“You’ve been really angry about this,” he says softly.

“Because I thought you were just fooling around! Acting without thinking as usual. I thought you were going to break her heart… or otherwise fuck her up for good. I didn’t know you were seriously in love with her.”

He looks up, and Britta’s expression still reads a little shell-shocked. It’s best to tread lightly, he thinks.

“I’m going to ask a question,” he tells her. “And trust me when I say I’m not asking to be a jerk, okay? I just… I need to know how much of your anger is about you worrying that I’m going to hurt Annie and how much is about all of this hurting you. Because I can’t fix it if I don’t know. Chances are, I can’t fix it anyway but …”

Britta looks offended, sneering just a bit.

“I’m not in love with you if that’s what you’re getting at!”

He laughs, partly because her outrage is amusing but mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“No. No, I’m not… that’s not what I meant.” He takes a deep breath. “I may be an insensitive ass most of the time, but even I can recognize the potential for …. discomfort here.”

She smiles thinly.

“Yeah. I guess so… and maybe there is … a little. But let’s be honest. Spur of the minute proposals aside, there hasn’t been anything here…” She gestures between them. “In a long time.”

He gives her a slow nod and shrugs.

“So I guess that means you’ll help me come up with a way to get through to Annie?”

She looks up at him in outrage for a minute, but then he smirks and she realizes he’s only teasing.

“You’re such an asshole!” she laughs, shoving at his arm. “I’m going to tell Annie to stay far, far away from you. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“No need,” he says, pushing away from the desk to stand. “She’s already doing that.”

Britta tilts her head, almost sympathetically.

“Well, I’m going to stay out of it. And I’m going to make sure everyone else stays out of it too. Because you guys don’t need us getting involved and making things even more screw-y.”

“We definitely do not,” he agrees.

They head toward the door together, but Britta stops suddenly and points a finger at him.

“But you better not screw this up,” she says. “Because I’ll totally help Annie bury your body, no questions asked.”

He bobs his head in agreement – she’s being a much better sport than he thinks he would be if their positions were reversed so he doesn’t want to push his luck.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“You know, it’s kind of funny,” she says as they reach the hallway. “You came to Greendale and started a study group because you wanted to sleep with me… and seven years later, it’s Annie you fell in love with. There’s some irony in there for sure.”

Jeff chuckles.

“That’s one word for it. Abed would probably call it a plot twist.”

Britta smiles.

“Or character development,” she suggests.

That’s a pretty generous way to look at it, he thinks. But he’d like to think he’s turned some kind of corner.

The real trick, though, is not doubling back around it.

\---

When he gets the group text from Shirley about dinner, he wonders if it’s some sort of grand matchmaking scheme.

But the message seems way too straightforward for that – _Can you all do dinner tonight or tomorrow? I need to talk to you about something._ – and he suspects that if it was all just about putting him and Annie in the same room, they’d try – and likely, fail – to be more discreet about the whole thing.

So he takes Shirley at her word – she needs to talk to them about something.

But that seems kind of ominous in its own right, and as he gets ready to head to the restaurant, he goes over the possible topics in his head.

Maybe her marriage to Andre is officially over – but he pretty much rules that one out because he thinks she’d ask him to look over the divorce papers like she did with the separation agreement, just to make sure all the T’s were crossed and the I’s dotted.

So his mind goes to an even darker place, like maybe she’s sick or one of the kids is sick --  but that seems unlikely too, because who invites friends to a Mexican restaurant to share that kind of news?

She probably just needs their help with something and figures they’ll be more likely agree if they’re probably lubricated with tequila and queso dip. Whatever it is that Shirley wants, though, he’s willing to bet that dinner will be an awkward affair – but maybe Annie will actually be more willing to talk to him if she’s done a shot or two of tequila.

But not too many; he needs her to remember the conversation in the morning.

When he gets to the restaurant, Troy, Abed and Annie are already at the table. There’s a giant hot pink frozen margarita in front of Troy and a smaller, traditional on the rocks version in front of Annie, and Jeff wonders if it’s unseemly to start with a shot right off the bat.

He’s barely pulled his chair out when Abed turns to him.

“What do you think Shirley wants?”

“Aren’t you the expert in other people’s motivations?” Jeff asks.

“Usually. But I’m at a loss here. I haven’t really spent that much time with Shirley recently. I’m out of touch.”

Jeff shrugs.

“She probably just needs –"

“Oh man!” Troy blurts out in a panic. “Did we forget her birthday?”

Annie shakes her head.

“It was back in June. We went to that tapas place near—"

“Oh, right,” Troy agrees. “We had those gross date things. Who knew there was anything that could make bacon gross?”

A waitress appears at the table so Jeff can order a beer. He really wishes this place had one of those damn crane games near the entrance or even a pinball machine, anything thing stupid and flashy enough to grab Troy and Abed’s attention for a few minutes so he could get some time alone with Annie at the table. But the restaurant is almost painfully understated, despite Troy’s tacky frozen drink, and then he spots Britta heading toward the table, and it’s clear he’s not going to get to say a single word to Annie without an audience.

“What’s going on?” Britta asks, taking the seat next to Annie. “I mean, this is really weird, isn’t it?”

Annie shrugs, but he can tell her smile’s a little forced.

“It’s probably nothing. Nothing major anyway.”

“Then why would she call this spur of the moment dinner?” Britta wonders. “And the text said she _needs_ to talk to us about something. What the hell does that mean? I mean, what could she—"

“Sorry! I’m so sorry I’m late. I got stuck in traffic on the way back from my mother’s.”

Shirley appears at the table almost out of nowhere, taking the seat between Britta and Jeff. Jeff’s been pretty sure that this whole even is nothing to worry about, but Shirley’s tone is full of such false, sing-songy cheer, like she’s trying to project a happiness that she doesn’t quite feel, that he feels his radar go up.

“Shirley,” Annie says, leaning across the table. “We know you just got here, but your message has us all a little spooked so maybe you could just—"

“Let me just get a drink,” she says, waving a hand to get the waitress’ attention.

No one misses the fact that she asks for an extra shot in her margarita, so the mood gets even tenser.

“Shirley?” Troy says, in a small, whiny voice. “I’m really scared now, so can you please just tell us what you need to tell us before I totally freak out.”

Shirley takes a deep breath, nodding slowing.

“I’m sorry.  I just don’t know how to start…”

On instinct alone, Jeff’s eyes find Annie’s across the table and they exchange a concerned look.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Shirley says. “Andre got a job in Scottsdale. He’s been struggling for a long time to find something that’s a good fit for him and now his brother’s down there and found him something that’ll work. And that’s good. That’s great for him. But he wants to take the boys with him…”

Jeff shakes his head, almost on Shirley’s behalf.

“He can’t just do that. If you guys don’t have a formal custody arrangement set up, he can’t just pick the kids up and take them out of state. You could fight him.”

There are nods and murmurs of agreement around the table, and Shirley smiles thinly.

“I could,” she says. “I know I could. But I don’t really want to put the boys through that. And I think maybe this is all a sign because my grandmother’s in Phoenix all by herself, and that’s right near Scottsdale. And when I was down there last year, they were building this new outdoor mall that has all these food carts and I could rent one for a lot less than a storefront and do that for a while until I save up money for my own retail space so…”

The table is quiet for a long moment, and Jeff looks around at his friends, somewhat comforted by the fact that everyone looks as rattled as he feels.

Annie’s the one who finally speaks, though.

“What exactly are you saying, Shirley?” she asks.

The thing is, they all know exactly what she’s telling them. But they need to have it spelled out if they’re actually going to believe it.

Shirley smiles again, but it’s sad and trembling, like she might cry at any moment.

“I’m moving to Scottsdale,” she says, slow and steady. “In January. For good.”

No one seems to know what to say – Troy looks like he’s going to burst into tears, though, sipping the rest of his margarita through the straw until he’s making obnoxious slurping sounds when he gets to the bottom. Jeff sips from his beer just to have to something to do, and when he glances over at Annie, she’s looking right back at him, her eyes a little glassy.

“Are you getting back together with Andre?” Britta asks. “Is that what this is about?”

“No,” Shirley insists. “No. I talked to Andre about it and he thinks it’s good for the boys if I’m nearby but … it’s not like that.” She sighs, and it’s a delicate, hopeless sound. “Though if I’m honest, doing this probably means that I haven’t really let go of the idea that it might all work out between us someday. And I probably need to do that… but I’m not doing it because of him. I’m doing it because it’s right for me and the boys right now.”

Jeff reaches out and squeezes her shoulder, somehow managing a tight smile.

“Then we wish you the best.”

“But we’re gonna miss you,” Troy adds, sniffling a little. “And your brownies and your pecan pie and that thing you make with the Cool Whip and chocolate pudding and marshmallows…”

Shirley laughs, wiping discreetly at her eyes.

“It’s not like I won’t be back pretty often. My mom and sister and plenty of cousins are all still here, so I’ll be visiting a lot.”

The rest of them try to smile gamely, but the mood is pretty dim.

“But I know this is technically going to be a kind of good bye,” Shirley continues. “So I just want to make sure you all know how much you mean to me. I can’t imagine getting through the last six years without all of you, which is how I know we’re going to stay in touch. Because I can’t imagine going through the future without you either.”

It’s Annie who moves first, getting up from her chair and coming around the other side of the table to hug Shirley from behind. Britta follows her cue, and then Troy and Abed, and Jeff could pretend he gives into the pressure, but really, he joins the hug because he wants too. The rest of the restaurant probably thinks they’re nuts, all tangled together around Shirley’s chair, but they stay that way for a long moment, not caring.

\--

He doesn’t want to analyze the impulse too closely, but on Saturday, he decides to drive up to see his mother.

Thanksgiving is next week, so he could just see her for the holiday, but for some reason, he doesn’t feel like waiting. His mother’s all excited too because she has a new dog she wants to introduce to him. It’s a frou-frou little thing that probably doesn’t even weigh twelve pounds and starts barking its damn head off as soon as he comes through the door.

“You think this is a dog, Mom?” he laughs. “It’s a just a rat with really good hair. Rosie would have swallowed her in one bite.”

“I’m almost 70 now, Jeffrey. I can’t be walking an 80 or 90 pound dog all by myself without worrying about breaking an ankle or tearing up my knee. Ginger’s all the dog I can handle.”

He feels a twinge of guilt that makes him a little uncomfortable, so he bends down and scratches the dog behind her ears to try to distract himself. But the truth is what it is -- he only sees his mother a few times a year, despite the fact that she barely lives an hour away. He doesn’t call to check up on her as much as he should, taking for granted that the emails she sends about what she’s up to and how she’s doing are the truth.

Because ignorance really is bliss – if he doesn’t know there’s anything wrong, he can’t feel bad about not being there for her, for checking out on her for the last twenty years almost as completely as his father checked out on him.

His mother smiles, watching as the dog licks at Jeff’s hand.

“Besides,” she says. “Look how sweet she is. She’s fantastic company.”

“And I’m sure she’ll do a great job scaring off anyone who breaks in.”

His mother waves a dismissive hand and pulls him in for a hug as he stands again.

“It’s so good to see you,” she whispers in his ear, and he feels the guilt rage a little harder.

But he follows her into her condo’s small kitchen, sitting at the table and playing with Ginger while she makes the homemade macaroni and cheese he always loved as a kid. He tells her she shouldn’t go to the trouble, but she looks at him over her shoulder with a knowing smile.

“You know how rare it is that I get to cook for you? I’m happy to do it.”

Somehow, she’s able to convince him to play a game of Scrabble while they wait for the mac and cheese to bake, just like they used to when he was a kid. He’s not sure if he knew it back then, but she’d let him win most games – and it seems like she’s determined to do it again, sticking to three and four letter words whenever she can to limit her points. He considers calling her out on it, but he knows she’d just deny it, so he employs the same tactics, keeping his words as short as possible to even the playing field.

He wins anyway, though, much to his mother’s delight.

“You’ve always been so smart. I’ve never been able to keep up.”

“You do just fine, Mom.”

She laughs a little as she gets up to take the macaroni out of the oven -- he tries to help, but she insists on waiting on him like he’s in a damn restaurant and hands him his plate with macaronic nearly falling over the edge because she’s filled it to capacity.

 She grins, watching as he takes the first bite. It tastes just like it did when he was a kid, like the best thing he’s ever eaten.

“So…” his mother says casually, digging into her plate. “How’s that friend of yours doing?”

He blinks at her in confusion because he’s pretty sure he didn’t mention anything about Shirley on the phone last night, so he doesn’t know what exactly she’s referring to. She must pick up on that, though, because she shakes her head and prods, “Your lady friend? The one who wanted to celebrate your birthday with you as soon as possible?”

He laughs and taps his fork against his napkin.

“She’s mad at me, actually.”

His mother looks up from her plate in surprise.

“Why would she be mad at you? What happened?”

He smiles half-heartedly.

“It’s complicated.”

“How complicated can it be?” She tilts her head, appraising him shrewdly. “Did you do something you shouldn’t?”

“Not exactly,” he says -- because he’s not about to explain the whole story to her. “But sort of.”

His mother shrugs, but offers up an encouraging smile.

“You’ll work it out. Who on earth could possibly stay mad at you, sweetheart?”

He laughs again – because if she only knew.

“And then maybe when you work it out,” she continues. “You’ll actually tell me something about her. Something really basic… like her name.”

He nods, biting his lip.

“Maybe.”

“You know, I don’t think I’ve known the name of one your girlfriends since you were 15-years-old and took that pretty redheaded girl, Stacey, to the homecoming dance.” She shakes her head. “That’s a really long time to keep stuff like that from your mother, Jeffrey.”

“There really hasn’t been anyone worth sharing,” he says.

“In over twenty years? I find that hard to believe.”

He pushes the macaroni around with his fork, avoiding her eyes. It doesn’t seem like the best time to explain exactly how empty his life has been, how long he’s been running from anything that might really matter to him. It’s not the kind of thing a mother ever needs to hear, actually.

After dinner, they sit in the living room with Ginger and he mixes an amaretto sour for his mother just like the old days. The dog makes him play tug-of-war with a ridiculous stuffed octopus toy, leaping a couple of feet in the air every time he waves it over her head. His mother nurses her drink, watching them with a soft smile.

“This is really nice,” she says.

He nods, trying to snatch the toy out of Ginger’s mouth. He feels it too, and wonders why he always makes all of this so difficult, so much harder than it has to be. He looks over at her and exhales slowly.

“Annie,” he says. “Her name’s Annie.”

He hopes that’ll be enough for now.

 --


	10. Chapter 10

\--

By the time he gets back to his apartment, it’s after ten so he’s feeling pretty tired and worn out.

But as he comes down the hallway and spots Annie sitting on the floor just beside his door, he’s suddenly wide awake. Her knees are bent and her head is tipped back against the wall, which makes it seem like she’s been waiting in that spot for a while.

For a second, he thinks he’s imagining the whole thing – because there really hasn’t been any hint that she’s thawing toward him – but then she looks over at him and smiles a little self-consciously and it all feels very real.

“Hey,” he says, keys in hand. “What are… have you been here long?”

She shrugs, looking pretty weary herself.

“I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe? I saw your car wasn’t here, but that older man with the really distinguished beard from the second floor recognized me and let me in… so I figured I’d just wait.”

“I was visiting my mom,” he explains. “You should have called or texted. I could have come back earlier.”

She shakes her head and pushes herself to her feet.

“No. It was good. I needed a little more time to think.”

He nods, fitting his key into the lock. It takes everything in him not to ask what she’s doing here right off the bat, but somehow he manages to play it cool. Because, really, her being here at all feels like a gift and he doesn’t want to do anything to screw it up.

“I probably should have called, though,” she says as she follows him inside. “I mean, I shouldn’t just show up on your doorstep like this without any warning. It’s really not—"

“It’s fine, Annie. You know that.”

But she doesn’t seem to – she stands aimlessly just behind his sofa as he closes the door behind them and takes off his coat. If she’s spent the past few hours sitting his hallway thinking, maybe she’s not quite done yet. She makes a soft sighing sound and turns to face him, though, so he conjures up a grin.

“You look like you could use a drink,” he says lightly.

She almost smiles.

“I could probably use the whole bottle.”

He nods, heading toward the liquor cabinet.

“Let’s start with a glass and see how it goes.”

It’s not the time for fancy, candy-sweet drinks, he suspects, so he grabs his usual bottle of scotch and fills a glass half way for her. He’s not sure whether he should have some too – he wants to be clear-headed for this, but if it doesn’t go his way, he thinks he’d rather be a little numb for the whole thing. He compromises, dribbling a couple of fingers’ worth into his glass. When he hands her the scotch, she smiles for real and he feels a little of the tension drain out of him.

She takes a long sip, her hand shaking some. He’s not about to push her, but he really wishes she would say something already, anything to let him know why she’s here.

And then it’s like she’s read his mind, because she wipes at her mouth and looks up at him.

“I saw my dad again,” she tells him. “Earlier this week.”

It’s not what he’s expecting at all, but he nods all the same.

“Yeah? How’d it go?”

“It was fine. Nice even.” She laughs a little, shaking her head. “He called me last weekend and said he’d had such a good time when we went lunch that he thought we should try dinner.”

She lifts her shoulders tiredly and moves around the sofa, taking a seat at one end. He sits at the opposite end and watches as she takes another sip of the scotch.

“We went to this restaurant we used to go to for my birthday when I was little,” she says. “And we talked about what I’m doing at the lab and how he might be up for another promotion at work and whether I should to grad school and how my brother’s doing. Just regular family stuff. And it felt so normal and easy that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.”

“But that’s good, right?”

She looks over at him, her eyes dark and glassy.

“Kind of,” she sighs. “I don’t know if this is going to make sense, but it was so *nice* that it actually hurt. Because afterward, all I could think was that we could have been doing that for the past six or seven years and we’d wasted so much time. Time that we can never get back even if I manage to really forgive him and he can prove that he really wants to be a part of my life again…”

Jeff nods, understanding better than he’s comfortable admitting. He doesn’t know if it was turning forty that did it or some other kind of internal shift, but lately, he feels time ticking away in a sharp, fast way that he’s never noticed before. It makes everything that happens around him feel strangely precious, makes the regrets sting that much more.

“And then Shirley tells us that she’s leaving,” Annie continues. “And Pierce is gone and Troy left for an entire year and I realize that as time goes by, it’s going to get easier and easier for us all to drift apart, no matter how much we might not want to… and I don’t want that to happen to us. I could wind up in grad school in New York or you could get your dream job in Seattle without us really giving this a chance. And I don’t want that to happen…”

He shifts a little closer to her on the sofa and nods.

“I don’t want that either,” he tells her.

She nods absently and reaches out to put her glass on the coffee table. She turns on the sofa and grabs one of the throw pillows, clutching it to her chest.

“But the thing is,” she starts to say. “I’m scared. I’m really scared… of so many things. That I’m not going to be enough for you or maybe that I’ll be too much or that we’ll both really try and it still won’t work and everything will fall apart and we’ll wind up hating each other…”

“Annie, we don’t—"

“I didn’t plan for it to happen like this, you know,” she whispers.

She lowers her head, almost like she’s embarrassed.

“What do you mean?”

“That night I came to your apartment and told you we should sleep together to make things right between us again,” she says. “It wasn’t some master plan to trap you in a relationship or anything. I was just sort of playing things by ear for once, trying not to look too far ahead.”

“I never thought you were trying to trap me. That thought never entered my mind.”

She nods, playing with the fringe on the pillow.

“No? Good. Because I was mostly telling the truth that night. Everything was so awkward between us because this monumental thing had happened and we couldn’t even remember it… and it seemed like maybe if we had a memory to put to it, we could sort of move on. Or try to, at least.”

Maybe that makes sense, he thinks. If they didn’t feel the way they do about one another. That’s what’s complicated everything between them since nearly the beginning.

“You said you were mostly telling the truth,” he says. “What was the rest of it?”

Her cheeks go a little red and she lowers her eyes to study her lap, like she can’t quite look him in the eye.

“There was also part of me that hated the fact that we’d screwed up everything between us and we couldn’t even remember the good parts,” she confesses. “It was like getting punished for taking a joyride that you don’t even remember.”

He chuckles a little under his breath, and she jerks her head up to look at him almost accusingly.

“I don’t know if anyone’s ever described sex with me that way before.”

She smacks at his knee with her foot, but she’s smiling too.

“It’s just… if things were going to be weird between us, I at least wanted to know what it felt like.” She takes a deep breath and lifts her shoulders helplessly. “To be with you, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I think I do. I felt pretty cheated too.”

“Exactly!” she declares, pointing a finger at him. “We’d been so careful not to cross any lines for years and then we do and we don’t even remember all the good stuff? We *were* cheated.”

She’s a little worked up now, posture perfect and eyes blazing as they always are when she’s really passionate about something. He smiles and moves closer to her on the sofa, his hand stretched along the back so his fingertips barely graze her shoulder.

“So what happened after that night?”

“It was amazing,” she says, rather matter-of-factly, and he can’t help grinning – which she certainly doesn’t miss. “I’m not saying that to feed your ego, so you can wipe that smug look off your face, okay?” She pause a moment, until he schools his features into a blank expression. “But it was amazing that first night and I guess I just wanted to do it again and see if it would be the same. And when it was, I kept telling myself just one more time, just one more time…”

He’s not an idiot, so he knows people can experience the same thing and have two completely different perceptions of it, but he finds himself amazed that she saw their relationship as something temporary and fleeting while he thought they were building toward something more. It doesn’t make any sense, actually.

“You didn’t get the impression I was enjoying it too?”

She smiles, looking almost shy.

“I knew you enjoyed the sex,” she says. “But I know you, Jeff. You don’t get serious with women. You don’t want a heavy, complicated relationship with all these strings and—"

“Annie, you didn’t really—"

“I started to think that even if that really wasn’t the way I wanted it, it was better to have you like that than not have you at all.”

He has no idea what to say to that because he feels pretty shitty – and it’s not like he did anything intentionally, but that only makes it seem worse, the idea that he could hurt her without knowing it, without even realizing it. He takes a sip of scotch, trying to drown the feeling.

“So I thought if it was something I could control,” Annie continues. “If I kept it casual and light, you know, the way you like it, then you’d want to keep it going.” She lowers her eyes again and lets out a deep breath. “You know, like your relationship with Britta.”

The sick feeling in his stomach makes him shift uncomfortably against the couch cushions and he can feel her eyes on him. He wonders if this is some kind of test.

“None of this has anything to do with Britta,” he says, as firmly as he can.

She tilts her head, her expression more dubious than he’d like.

“You were going to marry her.”

“For a few hours, Annie. Because that’s exactly how long it took us to come to our senses. It was a joke… and you knew that at the time. You knew it right away.”

She nods, but he gets the feeling she’s not really agreeing with him.

“No. You’re right. This is really about me,” she says. “I know you think I’m hopelessly idealistic and naive. You think that because I sing along to Taylor Swift songs and sometimes cry at Nicholas Sparks movies, I’m expecting some unrealistic happily-ever-after with hearts and flowers and skipping through meadows and all that kind of stuff.”

He laughs without thinking, and she frowns, looking more than a little offended.

“No,” he insists, shaking his head. “I wasn’t thinking… I mean, I figured you know me well enough to understand I wasn’t going to be standing outside your window in the rain with a boom box over my head. But I guess I thought there was some kind of middle ground. I was expecting you to want an actual relationship. Not just random hookups every other night of the week.”

Her smile is a little rueful.

“That’s because I was trying to show you I wasn’t going to be all clingy and demanding. That I could be all sophisticated and cool and detached about the whole thing.”

“Ah, I see,” he says. “So that’s why you never wanted to spend the night or go to dinner or do anything that might resemble a real relationship?”

She nods sheepishly – and there’s something so enticing about the warm flush in her cheeks that he can’t resist fanning the flames a little.

“Did you buy all the sexy underwear for me too?”

She huffs out an outraged laugh and smacks at his arm.

“I didn’t buy it for you!” she insists. “I already had it… I’d just never had much occasion to wear it before.”

He grins, reaching out to brush back the strand of hair that’s fallen across her cheek.

“I find that really hard to believe.”

When Annie looks up at him in the dim light of his apartment, her eyes are shimmering and he wants to kiss her so badly but he’s not sure that what she wants right now, if she might think he’s only trying to patch things up with sex. He bites at his lip to resist the urge, and she reaches out to pinch the fabric of his jeans where it’s bunched at his knee between her fingers.

“The point,” she says softly. “Is that I didn’t want you to feel pressured into feeling or being something you weren’t just because you were worried about fragile, little me. I don’t ever want you to be less than honest about how you feel, even if you think it’s not what I want to hear. I know we’ve been friends for so long and you don’t want to hurt me, but…”

“Annie,” he drawls, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m way too selfish to fake anything. Well, at least when there’s no direct personal gain for me. You know that.”

She smiles, but there’s still doubt lingering somewhere in her eyes – and that’s his fault, he knows, because he should have told her how he felt the second they got out of Borchert’s basement. Or, at the very least, the morning after, when he’d had a few hours to get used to the idea and down half a bottle of scotch. He definitely shouldn’t have waited a year and half, after they’d been sleeping together for months.

“I’m kind of an asshole,” he says dryly. “Aren’t I?”

“No,” she starts to reassure him, but then seems to reconsider. “Well, sometimes. But I’m a jerk sometimes too.  Not as often as you but…”

She grins, pleased by his amused expression, and pats his knee.

But it doesn’t seem like enough at this point.

“Here’s the thing,” he says. “I need you to know I didn’t start having these feelings for you after we slept together. I’ve felt them for a while. For a really long time, actually.”

She furrows her brow.

 “What’re you talking about?”

“You remember almost two years ago when we got trapped in Borchert’s lab?”

“How could I possibly forget?”

“And we needed a burst of passion or whatever to restart the computer so I hooked myself up to it and the door opened?”

Apparently, he doesn’t have to say anything more because he sees the realization dawn on her face -- and she’s obviously stunned, her eyes wide and dark. She curls her hand around his knee almost without realizing it and squeezes lightly.

“And if I’m honest,” he continues. “I’d felt it even before that. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself.”

She shakes her head and sighs a little.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks in a whisper.

“Because, as we’ve discussed, I’m an asshole… and like you, I was pretty fucking scared.”

He can’t lie – it’s a relief to just get all of this out on the table. And he could kick himself for being such a Goddamn coward and not telling her sooner. They could have avoided so much bullshit along the way if he’d just manned up and told her at any point in the past seven months. Annie grabs her glass from the coffee table and drains the rest of her scotch. She’s trying for a little liquid courage apparently because she turns him then and smiles.  

“So you’re serious about loving me?” she asks. “This isn’t some sort of midlife crisis or something?”

He groans, clutching a hand to his chest like he’s been mortally wounded.

“Whoa,” he laughs. “You really know how to kick a guy when he’s down, don’t you? No. This isn’t a midlife crisis.” He bumps his knee against hers. “You know, I feel like it’s been a lot of me telling you how I feel the past couple of weeks. It might be nice to hear how you feel one of these days. Unless you’re not sure…”

She swats at his stomach pretty hard, but it only makes him smile – he’s known for a while she’s a bruiser.

“Of course I love you, you dummy.”

He catches her hand against his stomach and tugs her toward him so she falls into his lap. He winds his arms around her waist, so they’re pressed together in the middle of his sofa.

“Yeah, I’m feeling really loved right now.”

She rests her hands on his shoulders, playing with the collar of his shirt.

“Would I put up with all of your crap if I didn’t?”

“This has been you putting up with my crap?” he chuckles. “And here I was, thinking you might actually start cutting me some slack now.”

She grins.

“Someone has to keep you in line, Jeff.”

He nods slowly and thoughtfully.

“Does that involve whips and chains and you in black leather?” he asks. “Because I think I could be into that.”

She rises up on her knees so she can straddle his lap and generate the kind of friction they both like.

“Let’s start easy,” she whispers. “And see how it goes.”

When she leans in to kiss him, it feels like he’s coming back to himself for the first time in weeks. He clutches at her hips and licks his way into her mouth, enjoying the smoky taste of scotch on her breath. But she pulls away a little sooner than he’d like, when he’s still kind of breathless and hungry, and looks down at him expectantly, and he’s suddenly reminded of their first real kiss without an audience years ago, when she’d worked up the courage to go for it and fell back, leaving the ball in his court.

It’s just like that – except this time, she’s smiling slyly.

“So?” she asks.

“So what?”

“Does that still do it for you now that this is a real, out-in-the-open kind of thing?”

He grins like an idiot and shrugs.

“You know, I’m not sure,” he tells her. “Better do it again.”

It doesn’t take any more to convince her.

\--

It takes some impressive maneuvering, but somehow, he’s able to grab the cashmere throw from the arm chair next to the couch without knocking Annie off of him or falling off the couch himself. When he drapes it over them, though, it only reaches the middle of his shins so his feet are still cold. But she’s curled in a heap on top of him, so she’s completely covered and perfectly warm – he jostles her a little in protest.

“I can’t help it if you’re a big lug,” she says, her breath warm across his throat.

“You didn’t seem to mind what a big lug I was a minute ago...”

She giggles, and it’s like everything he’s feeling is distilled in that small, giddy sound. He feels lighter than he has in years, like he can finally breathe free and easy again.

“You know,” he says casually. “There’s something else I should probably confess.”

She lifts her head, eyes wide with panic like she thinks he’s going to admit to a cross-country murder spree or a secret lovechild with the lunch lady.

“What?”

“I’ve got a few Taylor Swift songs on my cardio playlist.”

She laughs but swats at his shoulder pretty hard.

“Don’t scare me like that, you jerk!”

He smirks, feeling pretty pleased with himself and Annie and the world in general. It makes for an interesting change of pace.

“But I’m more likely to volunteer to catsit for Britta’s sickly menagerie than ever sit through a Nicholas Sparks movie,” he tells her. “So you’re out of luck.”

She scoots up a little higher, dragging her bare breasts against his chest, and tilts her head coyly.

“We’ll see,” she whispers just before stealing a kiss.

He kind of wants to argue the point, but it’s hard to think when her mouth is moving over his the way that it is. She works her away along his jaw and over his throat, while her fingertips trail over his chest, and he’s just about to promise to watch ‘The Notebook’ every day for the rest of his life if she never stops when she does just that – stops completely.

“Hey,” she says, tapping a finger against his chin. “You said you went to your mother. Did you have a good time?”

He can’t help laughing a little at the change in subject, but manages to nod as he shifts under her to get more comfortable.

“I should probably see her more often,” he confesses. “But every time I do, I feel so guilty that I don’t want to go back for a good, long while.”

“She’s probably just happy to see you,” Annie tells him. “And would tell you it’s silly to feel guilty.”

“Isn’t that the biggest guilt trip of all, though? Absolving me of my guilt so I only wind up feeling guiltier?”

She cocks her head, eye narrowed thoughtfully.

“You think she’s doing it on purpose?”

“No,” he answers without thinking. “But people can’t help the way they feel.”

Annie lowers her head, tracing her fingers over the center of his chest almost absently. He runs his hand over the back of her hair and she looks up at him from beneath the dark, heavy fringe of her lashes.

“They can’t,” she agrees. “That’s why I can’t really help that I’m still scared.”

He purses his lip and nods thoughtfully.

“Of what exactly?”

She laughs, all nervous and breathy.

“I’m just … what if we can’t make this work, Jeff?” she asks. “It feels like there’s so much at stake and one wrong move will…”

She trails off, shaking her head like she doesn’t want to even verbalize the possibilities. He totally gets it because he feels the same way – failure isn’t an option, so he’s trying not to even think about it or imagine what it might look like, feel like. He might chicken out if he does.

“I think we just take it one day at time,” he says.

She smiles softly and maybe a little sadly.

“That’s how they tell you to think about your recovery in NA and it’s worked so far.”  She sighs and places her palm flat against the center of his chest. “But what if we don’t want the same things?” she practically whispers.

Her low, fragile voice just about kills him, and he reaches up to run his knuckles against her cheekbone.

“I want you,” he tells her. “We can figure everything else out along the way.”

He knows her – that likely isn’t an answer that will satisfy her for long.  She likes to think about the future, plan ahead, have a road map to follow, but he hopes she understands what he’s saying, that he’s committed to figuring things out.

Annie leans in, resting her forehead against his, and breathes out very slowly.

When she kisses him, he thinks she gets it.

\--

No one says it, but the fact that Shirley’s leaving in just a couple of months makes spending Thanksgiving together seem even more important, especially because Andre’s taking the boys to his parents’ and she doesn’t particularly want to spend the day hearing her own family do nothing but questions all of her life choices and wonder if she’s done enough to save her marriage.

Even Jeff feels pretty bad about the whole thing, so he offers to host dinner at his place – provided he doesn’t have to do any of the cooking.

So Shirley agrees to make the turkey at her aprtment and bring it over, Britta plans to bring tofurky – “For those of us that don’t want to eat meat,” she says, and Jeff wants to point she’s the only one who doesn’t but in the spirit of the holiday, he refrains -- and Troy and Abed volunteer to make candied sweet potatoes. (Annie peeks in their bag of supplies, though, and while there are actual sweet potatoes in it, she also spots a bag of M&M’s and candy corn so there’s no telling what kind of horror it’ll turn out to be).

Annie offers to make the rest of the side dishes, but asks if she can use Jeff’s kitchen because she’s pretty sure hers will be a disaster due to her roommates’ cooking efforts. He sees no problem with it – it even means that she stays over the night before so she can wake up bright and early and get to work right away and there are plenty of benefits to that – until she makes him peel a five-pound bag of potatoes. He complains the entire time, but she pretty much ignores him, only turning around once to roll her eyes emphatically before she goes back to chopping the onions and celery.

He watches her move around the kitchen, stirring the cranberry sauce and putting the stuffing in the oven a little too frantically for his tastes, so he makes her a French Connection, which she can only choke down when he adds an extra shot or two of amaretto -- but he still tastes the cognac on her breath when he presses her back against the fridge and kisses her just before their friends arrive.

When they’re finally gathered around the table, it’s no surprise that Shirley insists they say grace, but as they start to pass the food around and she also declares, “I think we should go around the table and all name one thing we’re thankful for today” like something out of some bad sitcom holiday special, so there’s a collective groan around the table.

“And no one can say the rest of us,” she clarifies. “Because then, we’d all just say that and it would be pretty boring.”

“That’s not fair,” Troy whines, whacking a spoonful of potatoes onto his plate. “I should get to say you guys since last year at this time, I was halfway around the world, dealing with gale force winds and a lack of toilet paper. I am thankful to be here with you guys… where I assume Jeff has plenty of toilet paper.”

He looks pointedly across the table at Jeff, who nods gamely.

“Troy, sweetie,” Shirley says. “You can come up with something else, can’t you?”

He grumbles a little under his breath before grinning broadly.

“I’m thankful I have millions of dollars in the bank,” he declares. “So I probably never have to work a day in my life if I don’t want to.”

“Troy!” Shirley scolds. “That’s not really in the spirit of the holiday!”

He shrugs.

“Then you should have let me go with my original answer.”

“Is it my turn?” Abed asks, looking around the table. “And I can’t say I’m thankful that Troy’s back?”

Shirley shakes her head.

“Well, can I say I’m thankful for Rachel? I don’t think any of the rest of you are going to say her, so …”

“Oh, that’s really sweet, Abed,” Annie says.

He lifts his shoulders indifferently, and looks over at Britta sitting beside him.

“You’re up.”

She sighs, head tilted thoughtfully.

“Um… well, I guess I’m thankful that Duncan’s putting my name on our study as a co-researcher. I mean, I’ll probably regret it since he’s in charge and the experiment will wind up being a total failure, but I’ve worked my ass off… well, not by Annie standards but by my standards anyway.” She shrugs. “Oh, and we’ve finally got Mr. Purrkins’ insulin levels figured out so his diabetes is under control. I’m extremely thankful for that.”

“Shirley,” Abed says, pointing at her. “Your turn.”

She looks a little caught off-guard, which strikes Jeff as funny given that this whole hokey thing was her idea.

“Oh, well, I guess that despite everything that’s happening, I’m thankful that I won’t be living two states away from my boys,” she says. “Even if it means leaving all of you behind.”

She gets a little teary eyed, and Annie and Britta both reach over to pat her hands consolingly.

“My food’s getting cold,” Troy announces, oblivious. “Can we move this along?”

“You can eat,” Jeff says. “This isn’t like grace.”

“I can? I’ve been waiting this whole time like a chump!”

He slams his fork into a piece of turkey and attacks it like he hasn’t eaten in weeks.

“Annie, sweetheart,” Shirley coos. “It’s your turn.”

“Oh,” Annie says, shifting in her chair. She looks over at Jeff quickly, hiding a smile. “I guess I’m just really thankful to be sitting here at this table.”

Abed raises a brow.

“That’s cheating. Shirley said we couldn’t be thankful for each other.”

“How do you know it’s you guys that make me thankful to be here? It could be the really good food.”

There’s some booing and hissing around the table, but Annie smiles down into her mashed potatoes without guilt.

“Okay, Jeff,” Abed says, once the commotion has died down. “Wow us with something really poignant and inspirational.”

Jeff smirks over the rim of his wine glass, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. He glances over at Annie, who’s smiling in that soft, dreamy way of hers, and he wants to say he’s thankful for her, for finally having a chance at something real with her, but that’s the kind of thing that should probably be said in private because he’s pretty sure the rest of them don’t want to hear about it.

He puts his glass down and shrugs.

“I’m thankful I have a really good memory,” he says.

Annie’s eyes widen and she lets out a surprised little laugh, even as she flushes prettily in the candlelight from the table.

“What does that mean?” Troy asks.

Jeff grins.

“Ask Annie.”

He and the rest of the able look over at Annie, who’s still blushing as she sips from her glass and stubbornly shakes her head.

“Oh, God,” Britta groans good-naturedly. “Get a room already.”

“Technically,” Jeff points out. “These are all my rooms so…”

She lobs a dinner roll at him, but he ducks at the right moment so it sails into the potted palm behind his chair. Annie shoots him a disapproving look for a moment until he grins at her hotly enough to make her blush and then she hooks her foot around his ankle beneath the table, running in up the back of his leg.

She tries to hide her smile with a hand, but he can still see it in her eyes.

\--

At ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, he can think of at least a dozen places he’d rather be than the post office.

It’s the first week of December, so all the early birds are in a hurry to send off their holiday packages, which means the place is packed. The heat's turned up too high and some Mariah Carey holiday album is playing on repeat on the speakers too – if Dante had lived to see the 21st century, this definitely would have made it into one of his circles of hell.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks the time again, and groans loudly.

“Oh, come on,” he whines. “Why do they bother making appointments if they’re not going to keep them?"

Beside him, Annie smiles patiently and pushes the coffee cup in his hand toward him.

“You just need more caffeine. We haven’t even been waiting ten minutes yet.”

“And yet, it still feels like torture.”

She shakes her head in amusement.

“You’re such a baby.”

He playfully tugs on a strand of her hair as if to prove her point, and she bats his hand away even as she giggles.

“This was all your idea, you know,” he accuses. “So I think you’re gonna have to make it up to me.”

“Oh, please! You’re the one who suggested we do it together. You were stealing my resolution if you recall.” She bites at her lip. “I can’t believe it took us this long to finally do it. We almost blew it.”

“But we did it within the year,” he points out. “So resolution met.”

She nods, and for what must be the third time since they got to the post office, she opens the manila folder she’s holding and shuffles through her paperwork to make sure everything is in order. He takes his phone out and scans his Twitter feed for anything that might distract him from the fact that he’s wasting precious minutes of his life in this damn line. But Annie nudges him with her elbow before he finds anything.

“Let me see your photo again.”

He slides his phone back into his pocket and reaches into the envelope that’s holding all of his documents to find the picture. When he hands it over to her, she tips her head back and laughs.

“You realize this is for a passport and not the cover of “GQ,” right? Look at your expression!”

He shrugs.

“Annie. I can’t help it if my good looks smolder naturally like that.”

She smirks a little, as if rising to some challenge, and tugs her phone out of her bag. He watches as she thumbs through a few screens before smiling triumphantly.

“Are they smoldering here?” she asks, holding up the phone so he can see the photo she snapped of him wearing that mud musk and fuzzy pink headband a few months back.

“Admit it,” he drawls. “Even there, I look hot.”

She leans into his side and they laugh together for a minute, apparently loud enough to get the woman in front of them to turn around and try to determine what’s so funny. Annie straightens up and goes back to organizing her paperwork, trying to seem business-like.

“I’m glad we’re finally doing this,” she says. “But I wish we could actually use our passports to go somewhere fabulous on your break next month. Like Paris or London or Madrid or Vienna…”

She sighs, a faraway wistful sound that he can hear even over Mariah’s vocal acrobatics on the speakers. So he takes his phone out again, but instead of scanning Twitter for a distraction, he does a little research.

“How about Montreal?” he asks. “They speak French there, so it’s practically like going to Europe. But flights are almost a thousand dollars cheaper than to Paris.”

She grins, sort of bouncing on the toes of her shoes.

“That’s a great idea! It’ll be really cold, which isn’t much fun, but we could go skiing!  They’ve got great skiing up there.”

“We can definitely go skiing,” he agrees. “And I’ll take you to a Canadiens’ game so you can wow me with all your hockey knowledge.”

She curls an arm around his waist, tucking herself into his side.

“It sounds perfect.”

He slides a hand over her back and nods.

“You know what? It can be my birthday present to you.”

“That seems a bit extravagant,” she says. “I mean, last year, you just gave me a Starbucks gift card.”

He shrugs.

“Last year, I didn’t have quite as much incentive to keep you happy.”

Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the post office, Annie tilts her head back and smiles up at him, all warm and tremulous. He can feel her heartbeat speed up against his chest too.

“I am,” she says. “Happy, I mean.”

“Me too,” he tells her – for once, it’s actually the truth.

And that means something.

It definitely means something.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> A long, long time ago, a very sweet anon on Tumblr asked for a story where Jeff and Annie wake up in bed together with no memory of what happened the night before. That seemed like a fun idea, and I started to write it – but then the S5 finale happened, and I was unable to write anything that didn’t touch on the events of that episode in some way. So this story, which was meant to a fun, little one shot, totally ran away from me and became something else entirely. I hope the anon (who probably thought I’d forgotten about the request because it came all the way back in February or March; sorry for the delay!) who really was the inspiration for this story can still enjoy it even though it’s probably not exactly what s/he was asking for.


End file.
